Alice Dunbar Nelson was an American poet, journalist, and political activist. Among the first generation born free in the South after the Civil War, she was one of the prominent African Americans involved in the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. She achieved prominence as a poet, author of short stories and dramas, newspaper columnist, activist for women's rights, and editor of two anthologies.
She co-founded and taught at the White Rose Mission (White Rose Home for Girls) in Manhattan's San Juan Hill neighborhood, beginning a correspondence with the poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar. Alice Dunbar Nelson's work in The Woman's Era captured Paul Laurence Dunbar's attention.

Dunbar-Nelson was an activist for African Americans' and women's rights, especially during the 1920s and 1930s. While she continued to write stories and poetry, she became more politically active in Wilmington, and put more effort into journalism on leading topics. In 1914, she co-founded the Equal Suffrage Study Club, and in 1915, she was a field organizer for the Middle Atlantic states for the woman's suffrage movement. In 1918, she was field representative for the Woman's Committee of the Council of Defense. In 1924, Dunbar-Nelson campaigned for the passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, but the Southern Democratic block in Congress defeated it.
During this time, Dunbar-Nelson worked in various ways to foster political change. It is said, "She stayed very active in the NAACP; she cofounded a much-needed reform school in Delaware for African American girls; she worked for the American Friends Inter-Racial Peace Committee; she spoke at rallies against the sentencing of the Scottsboro defendants."

Source: Wikipedia