Alice Ruth Moore was born on this date in 1875, in New Orleans. We know her as Alice Dunbar Nelson, poet, journalist, essayist, teacher, and political activist. Among the first generation of African Americans born free in the Southern United States after the end of the American Civil War, she was part of the artistic flourishing of the Harlem Renaissance. She graduated in 1892 from Straight University, a historically black college that became part of Dillard University. Her first marriage to poet and journalist Paul Laurence Dunbar was troubled, and her second marriage to physician and professor Henry A. Callis was brief. In 1916, she married the poet and civil rights activist Robert J. Nelson and joined him in becoming active in local and regional politics. They stayed together for the rest of their lives. She led an eventful and productive life, living in New Orleans for 21 years, then Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Wilmington, and Phildelpha. In 1897, she co-founded and taught at the White Rose Home for Girls in Manhattan. In the 1920s and 1930s, she was an activist for African Americans' and women's rights. In 1924, she campaigned for the passage of the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, but the Southern Democratic block in Congress defeated it. In 1930, Nelson traveled throughout the country lecturing, covering thousands of miles and presenting at thirty-seven educational institutions. Throughout, she continued to write and publish stories and poetry. Her papers are an important archive of an early African American woman writer in the United States. Her diary, published in 1984, provides insight into the lives of black women during this time, covering topics such as family, friendship, sexuality, health, professional problems, travels, and often financial difficulties. Alice Dunbar Nelson died in Philadelphia in 1935, from a heart ailment, at the age of 60. Credit: https://w.wiki/EnSp Today I planned a route looking for an alternative route back up to Mulholland from the Valley. Sepulveda Boulevard is the old standby, but the tunnel always makes me nervous. For today, I settled on Coldwater Canyon, which isn't very long or steep, about 400 feet in 1.8 miles. I hadn't ridden it before. I found it narrow, with inconsistent shoulders, and poor pavement in many places, plus relatively heavy traffic on a Saturday afternoon. The good news is: It's very winding, so the drivers weren't going very fast at all, and none of them seem to mind my bicycle, even when I had to ride in the lane. So not a bad route. And from a recent ride, I was already familiar with Coldwater Canyon Park at the top, in particular, where the working water fountain is! I filled my empty first bottle. And I knew the Franklin Canyon descent through Beverly Hills from that same recent ride, and the route through Beverly Hills to Baldwin Hills and up to the overlook. After descending from the overlook, I started to feel very tired. Probably part of that was the rapidly cooling temperature. Not wanting any more climbing, I biked down Venice Boulevard and across Beethoven to Sunset Ave. All good, but a bit of a slog. I arrive 4 pounds lighter than I weighed earlier today. Some of that will come back rapidly, but I've been consistently working down to a weight that'll let me ride more and more easily. Only 28 pounds to go.