{"id":62192,"date":"2024-11-12T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/?post_type=lecture&#038;p=62192"},"modified":"2025-05-22T16:14:33","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T20:14:33","slug":"phillis-wheatley-americas-first-black-poet","status":"publish","type":"lecture","link":"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/phillis-wheatley-americas-first-black-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillis Wheatley: America\u2019s First Black Poet\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<section class=\"wp-block-umw-hero alignfull umw-custom-block umw-hero umw-hero--dark-text umw-hero--white umw-hero--with-no-media\"><div class=\"umw-hero__inner\"><div class=\"umw-hero__media\"><\/div><div class=\"umw-hero__title\"><div class=\"container\"><div class=\"umw-hero__title__wrapper\"><div class=\"umw-hero__eyebrow\">great lives lecture series<\/div><h1 class=\"umw-hero__title__header\">Phillis Wheatley<\/h1><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"wp-block-umw-hero-ctas alignfull\"><div class=\"umw-hero__links\"><div class=\"container\"><div class=\"umw-hero__links__wrapper\">\n\n\n\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-lecture-date-february-27-2025\">Lecture Date: February 27, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-the-umw-museums-lecture\">The UMW Museums Lecture<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Great Lives 2025: Phillis Wheatley\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1061407677?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"1100\" height=\"619\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"667\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62164\" style=\"width:276px;height:auto\" title=\"\" srcset=\"\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher.jpg 667w, \/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 667px) 100vw, 667px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. Seized in West Africa and forced into slavery as a child, she was sold to a merchant family in Boston, where she became a noted poet at a young age. Mastering the Bible, Greek and Latin translations, and the works of Pope and Milton, she composed elegies for local elites, celebrated political events, praised warriors, and used her verse to variously lampoon, question, and assert the injustice of her enslaved condition. \u201cCan I then but pray \/ Others may never feel tyrannic sway?\u201d By doing so, she added her voice to a vibrant, multisided conversation about race, slavery, and discontent with British rule; before and after her emancipation, her verses shook up racial etiquette and used familiar forms to create bold new meanings. She demonstrated a complex but crucial fact of the times: that the American Revolution both strengthened and limited Black slavery.<br><br>In <em>The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley<\/em>, historian David Waldstreicher offers the fullest account to date of Wheatley\u2019s life and works, correcting myths, reconstructing intimate friendships, and deepening our understanding of her verse and the Revolutionary era. He demonstrates the continued vitality and resonance of a woman who wrote, in a founding gesture of American literature, \u201cThy Power, O Liberty, makes strong the weak \/ And (wond\u2019rous instinct) Ethiopians speak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/docs.google.com\/presentation\/d\/1JUu782djN20aij4mWfVr-1Zmr3lKjl-z\/edit?usp=sharing&amp;ouid=103238403274382254745&amp;rtpof=true&amp;sd=true\">VIEW PHOTO SLIDESHOW<div class='arrow'><\/div><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-speaker-david-waldstreicher-nbsp\">Speaker: David Waldstreicher&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher_pic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"169\" height=\"253\" src=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/11\/waldstreicher_pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62179\" style=\"width:231px;height:auto\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>David Waldstreicher&nbsp;teaches history at the City University of New York Graduate Center and is the author of&nbsp;<em>Slavery\u2019s Constitution: From Revolution to Ratification<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Runaway America: Benjamin Franklin, Slavery<\/em>,<em>&nbsp;and the American Revolution<\/em>. He has written for&nbsp;<em>The New York Times Book Review<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>Boston Review<\/em>, and&nbsp;<em>The<\/em>&nbsp;<em>Atlantic<\/em>, among other publications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"umw_cb_additional_links":[[]],"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_advisory_expires_time":"","_advisory_meta_include":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"season":[1261],"class_list":{"0":"post-62192","1":"lecture","2":"type-lecture","3":"status-publish","5":"season-1261","6":"entry"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v26.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Phillis Wheatley: America\u2019s First Black Poet\u00a0 - Great Lives<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.umw.edu\/greatlives\/lecture\/phillis-wheatley-americas-first-black-poet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Phillis Wheatley: America\u2019s First Black Poet\u00a0\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lecture Date: February 27, 2025 The UMW Museums Lecture Admired by George Washington, ridiculed by Thomas Jefferson, published in London, and read far and wide, Phillis Wheatley led one of the most extraordinary American lives. 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