Jupiter Hammon Publishes Address to Negroes in the State of New York

Jupiter Hammon, an enslaved man on Long Island and the first Black American to publish a poem (1761), delivered and published An Address to the Negroes in the State of New York in 1786. The widely circulated pamphlet urged education, moral improvement, and cautious hope for gradual emancipation, representing a foundational text of African American literature.