Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask”appeared in Dunbar’s first published volume, Lyrics of Lowly Life, by Dodd, Mead, and Company in 1896. It also was in print in the volume Majors and Minors the previous year. Having parents who lead a past of slavery, and subjected to Apartheid himself, Dunbar was aware of the internal anguish and agony the blacks went through. The mask, an extended metaphor utilized here, marks a distinction between the mask and the man. Note that he says ‘We wear the Mask” and not ‘We are the mask.’ The action is done consciously and objectively. Henry Louis Gates referred to Dunbar’s dialect verse as “mask in motion”.The black puts up a brave face, as he would prefer to break than bend to life’s atrocities. The mask portrayed grins and lies. The mask hides the blood rushing to the cheek; and shades the eyes that most eloquently gives away one’s emotions. The blacks pay a heavy debt to human astuteness submitting to the vileness of the whites. The ‘We’ refers to the collective consciousness of the black race. Though the mouth gives away emotions in all its subtlety ,the smile that forms the mask camoufaluges the ‘torn and bleeding hearts.” Likewise, the black plays his role out in the world despite the fact what lies in his heart.…