“The night is not all dark,
Nor is the day all it seems,
But each may bring me this relief—
My dreams and dreams” – Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872 – 1906
Extracted from, Forever
In conjunction with Black History Month, Dunbar House Detroit has launched a fundraising site at www.GoFundMe.org/DunbarHouseDetroit
Dunbar House Detroit is a National Historic Landmark and one of Detroit’s first black hospitals. It was founded in 1918 to provide healthcare for African Americans who were often denied care by other providers.
Dunbar’s hospital started with less than 30 beds and grew quickly — adding a nursing school, expanding its range, and eventually moving to a larger site which now houses part of the Detroit Medical Center complex. Dunbar House is the only one of Detroit’s first black hospital sites still standing in its original form.
Working with private and corporate donations, we intend to restore Dunbar House Detroit and serve the community through educational and support programs focused on arts, medicine and science. By doing so, we seek to honor the doctors and nurses who sacrificed at Dunbar and hospitals like it, and ensure they remain a permanent part of Detroit’s history.
Dunbar was named for Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872 – 1906), one of the first black poets to gain a national following and critical acclaim.
He died of tuberculosis at the age of 33.
“The night is not all dark,
Nor is the day all it seems,
But each may bring me this relief—
My dreams and dreams”