This event is open to everyone
This September marks the 250th anniversary of a profound literary and cultural achievement: the publication on Sept. 1, 1773, in London of “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” by a teenage Boston poet named Phillis Wheatley, who was at the time enslaved.
The poet had arrived in Boston in 1761 as a young girl, perhaps 7 or 8 years old, kidnapped from the coast of Africa. She was bought by a merchant family, the Wheatleys, and named after the ship that brought her. Eventually freed, she lived in Boston through some of the most exciting years of U.S. history, including religious awakenings and the birth of the nation. She married a free Black shopkeeper, John Peters, and died young, at age 31.
Join us at the Black Cultural Center to engage with Phillis Wheatley Peters’ complex life and even more complex legacy as the second Colonial American woman—and the first of African descent—to publish a book of poetry. Devout, learned, courageous, brilliant and the regular correspondent of clergy and statesmen as well as fellow enslaved Africans, Wheatley’s life and poetry continue to amaze and provoke.
Speakers will include:
Faculty and students from the Divisions of Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies and the Department of English will read some of Wheatley’s letters and poetry aloud during the event.
The celebration also will feature food from Makaya Caters, poetry reading and conversation about Wheatley’s impact on the world in her time and ours.