AchievementSeptember 1773· literature
Phillis Wheatley Publishes First Book of Poetry by a Black American
Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman in Boston, published Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in London in 1773, the first book of poetry published by a Black American and only the third book published by an American woman. Her achievement prompted a celebrated examination by Boston's leading men who certified her authorship.
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Resources
Primary sources·1
Videos·1
Phillis Wheatley, Crash Course Black American History #7
CrashCourse
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Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations, the links rarely drawn together.
- contradicts·ThreadWhite-Supremacist Ideology
Wheatley's published poems were paraded as living disproof of the era's claim that Africans could not reason or create.