NSRTC Black History Month Tributes

The North Salem Republican Town Committee honors Black History Month.  Phillis Wheatley was born in Africa around 1753 and brought over enslaved as a young girl around age 7, and sold to the Wheatley family in Boston, MA.  She was named after the slave ship that brought her to the American colonies, "The Phillis".  Despite spending most of her young life enslaved, she became the first African-American (and 2nd woman) to publish a book of poetry.  Her slave owners educated her, and at age 14 she wrote her first published poem, “An Elegiac Poem, on the Death of the Celebrated Divine George Whitefield”.  In 1773, she traveled to England with the Wheatley's son to publish her first collection of poems, "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral—the first book written by a black woman in America. It included a forward, signed by John Hancock and other Boston notables—as well as a portrait of Wheatley—all designed to prove that the work was indeed written by a black woman. She was emancipated her shortly thereafter" (womenshistory.org).  Phillis believed that slavery was the issue that the colonists needed to address to become truly heroic.  Read more about the life of Phillis Wheatley at the link below; and how she strengthened the abolitionist movement by proving to many that blacks were capable and intelligent, and benefited from an education.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phillis-w…