We Wear the Mask Summary
Paul Laurence Dunbar

We Wear the Mask Overview

“We Wear the Mask” is a three-stanza iambic tetrameter poem by African American poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar. The poem was originally published in 1895 in Dunbar’s Majors and Minors volume of poetry. It examines the complex feelings of African Americans in response to systemic racism in Reconstruction era America, focusing especially on how they have a metaphorical “mask” imposed on them.