[3] Dumas was born in Sweet Home, Arkansas, in 1934 and lived there until the age of ten, when he moved to New York City; however, he always kept with him the religious and folk traditions of his hometown.

He was in the military until 1957, at which time he enrolled at Rutgers University, where he attended as a full-time and a part-time student without attaining a degree.

In 1967, Dumas became a teacher-counselor and director of language workshops at Southern Illinois University's Experiment in Higher Education, in East St. Louis.

The die was cast, arrangements were made and with the editorial assistance of Hale Chatfield, founder of the Hiram Poetry Review, Dumas's works were published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Ark of Bones and Other Stories and Poetry for My People were both first published in 1970 by Southern Illinois University Press, where Dumas worked before his death.

Toni Morrison, then working as an editor at Random House, read Poetry for My People and used her influence to have Random House publish two collections of Dumas's published and unpublished writings in 1974, Play Ebony, Play Ivory, which was a reprint of Poetry for my People, and Ark of Bones.

"[16] In 1976, Dumas's short story "Thalia" won The Black Scholar's first creative writing award,[17] chosen by James Baldwin.

Dumas's poem "Black Paladins" became the title track for a recording by Joseph Jarman and Famoudou Don Moye in 1979.

Writer Margaret Walker and musicians James Brown and John Coltrane proved to be major influences on his writing.