Barrington Dunbar was born in British Guyana and educated in the United States. He devoted his life to social work, as the director of settlement houses, camps for refugees, and other such services. He joined 57th Street Meeting in Chicago and later was active with 15th Street Meeting in New York City. Committed to both black liberation and Quakerism, he explained the Black Power movement to European Americans as a need to express rage as a step toward sef-esteem (Black Fire, 125).