Maurice N. Corbett

Maurice N. Corbett (b Mar. 1859, Yanceyville, Caswell, NC | d 8 Feb. 1924, Washington, DC), son of a slave mother, married Elvira Henderson and had three children. A graduate of Shaw University, he was elected to the North Carolina House of Representatives (1885), and he controversially served as secretary to U.S. congressman Thomas Settle III (1896). He and his family moved to Washington, DC, where he was a clerk in the U.S. Census Bureau, then worked for the Government Printing Office. His poetry was collected in The Harp of Ethiopia (1914). At his death, he was a member of the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias, and his funeral was held at Nineteenth Street Baptist Church, where Walter H. Brooks was pastor.

—Chris Fenner, Hymns & Devotions for Daily Worship: African American Edition (2025).