Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Cross References
- Entries
- Abbott, Robert S.
- Abele, Julian F.
- Affirmative Action
- Africa
- African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)
- Afro-American Studies
- Agriculture
- AIDS
- Ali, Muhammad
- Allen, Richard
- American Revolution
- Anderson, Marian
- Angelou, Maya
- Anticommunism
- Antilynching Campaign
- Antislavery Movement
- Antiterror Wars
- Apartheid
- Architecture
- Art
- Ashe, Arthur R.
- Associated Negro Press (ANP)
- Atlanta Compromise (1895)
- Back-to-Africa Movement
- Baker, Ella J.
- Baker v. Carr (1962)
- Bakke v. Board of Regents of California (1978)
- Baldwin, James
- Barnett, Claude A.
- Bates, Daisy L.
- Bethune, Mary McLeod
- Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
- Black Arts Movement
- Black Belt
- Black Bourgeoisie (1957)
- Black Manifesto (1969)
- Black Nationalism
- Black Panther Party (BPP)
- Black Power Movement
- Black Towns
- Bloody Sunday
- Bond, Horace M.
- Bond, Julian
- Bouchet, Edward A.
- Brooke, Edward W.
- Brooks, Gwendolyn E.
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP)
- Brown, Charlotte Hawkins
- Brown, James N. (Jim)
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
- Buffalo Soldiers
- Bunche, Ralph J.
- Business
- Caesar, Shirley
- Capitalism
- Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Turé)
- Carver, George Washington
- Chesnutt, Charles W.
- Children's Defense Fund (CDF)
- Chisholm, Shirley A.
- Cities
- Civil Rights Act of 1957
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Civil Rights Movement (CRM)
- Civil War
- Clark, Kenneth B.
- Clark, Septima P.
- Clubs
- Cold War
- Colonialism
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Constitution, US (1789)
- Conventions, National Negro
- Convict-Lease System
- Cooper, Anna Julia
- Cosby, William H. (Bill)
- Dance
- Davis, Angela Y.
- Davis, W. Allison
- Death Penalty
- Delany, Martin R.
- DePriest, Oscar S.
- Desegregation
- Divine, Father (George Baker)
- Douglass, Frederick
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Drew, Charles R.
- Du Bois, W. E. B.
- Durham Manifesto (1942)
- Education
- Ellison, Ralph
- Emancipation
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Evers, Medgar W.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948)
- Exodusters
- Family
- Farmer, James L.
- Farrakhan, Louis A.
- Feminism
- Film
- Fisher, Miles Mark
- Foreign Affairs
- “Forty Acres and a Mule”
- Four Freedoms
- Franklin, Aretha L.
- Franklin, John Hope
- Fraternal Orders and Lodges
- Fraternities
- Free African Society (FAS)
- Free Blacks
- Freedmen's Bank
- Freedmen's Bureau
- Freedom Rides
- Freedom Summer
- Freedom Train
- Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
- Garvey, Marcus M.
- Ghetto
- G. I. Bill (1944)
- Gibson, Althea
- Gospel of Freedom
- Graves, Earl G.
- Great Depression
- Great Migration
- Haitian Revolution
- Hall, Prince
- Hamer, Fannie Lou
- Hampton–Tuskegee Idea
- Hancock, Gordon B.
- Handy, William C. (W. C.)
- Harlem Renaissance
- Harris, Abram L.
- Hastie, William H.
- Height, Dorothy I.
- Higginbotham, H. Leon
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Hope, John
- Horne, Lena M.
- Houston, Charles H.
- Hughes, Langston
- Humphrey–Hawkins Bill (1976)
- Immigration
- Indentured Servitude
- Indian Wars
- Institute of the Black World (IBW)
- Interracial Relations
- Jackson, Jesse L.
- Jackson, Luther P.
- Jackson, Mahalia
- Jackson, Michael J.
- Jacobs, Harriet A.
- Jemison, Mae C.
- Jobs Campaigns
- John Brown's Raid
- John Henryism
- Johnson, John A. (Jack)
- Johnson, John H.
- Johnson, Sargent C.
- Jordan, Barbara C.
- Jordan, Michael J.
- Journalism
- Journey of Reconciliation (1947)
- Just, Ernest E.
- Justice, US Department of
- Katzenbach v. McClung (1964)
- Kerner Report
- King, Martin Luther, Jr.
- Korean War
- Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
- Kwanzaa
- Labor
- Law Enforcement
- Lawson, James M.
- Lee, Shelton J. (Spike)
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Lewis, Edmonia
- Lewis, John R.
- Lewis, Reginald F.
- “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
- Literature
- Little (X), Malcolm
- Little Rock Crisis
- Louis, Joe
- Loving v. Virginia (1967)
- Mandela, Nelson R.
- Manumission
- March on Washington (1963)
- March on Washington Movement (MOWM)
- Marshall, Thurgood
- Massive Resistance
- Mays, Benjamin E.
- McCoy, Elijah J.
- McKissick, Floyd B.
- McKissick v. Carmichael (1951)
- Medicine
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Military
- Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
- Minorities, Racial and Ethnic
- Miscegenation
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
- Mitchell, Clarence M.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Moore, Harry T.
- Morgan v. Virginia (1946)
- Morrison, Toni
- Moseley-Braun, Carol
- Motley, Constance Baker
- Moynihan Report
- Muhammad, Elijah
- Multiculturalism
- Murray, Pauli
- Music
- Nation of Islam (NOI)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW)
- National Association of Colored Women (NACW)
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
- National Urban League (NUL)
- Négritude
- Negro History Movement
- New Left
- New Negro Movement
- Niagara Movement
- Norris v. Alabama (1935)
- Obama, Barack H.
- Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity)
- Owens, James C. (Jesse)
- Pan-African Movement
- Parks, Gordon
- Parks, Rosa L.
- Persian Gulf War
- Philanthropy
- Photography
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Politics
- Port Chicago Mutiny (1944)
- Poverty
- Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.
- Powell, Colin L.
- Race Labels
- Race Man/Woman
- Randolph, A. Philip
- Reconstruction (1865–77)
- Redistricting
- Religion
- Resegregation
- Rice, Condoleeza
- Robeson, Paul
- Robinson, Jack R. (Jackie)
- Roots
- Rosenwald Schools
- Rustin, Bayard T.
- Scholarship
- Science
- Segregation
- Share Croppers’ Union (SCU)
- Sharecropping
- Shaw v. Reno (1993)
- Sit-ins
- Slavery
- Smith v. Allwright (1944)
- Societies, Mutual Aid
- Sororities
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC)
- Spanish-American War
- Spaulding, Charles C.
- Sports
- State Convention of Colored Men of Texas (1883)
- Student Activism
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
- Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
- Talented Tenth
- Technology
- Television
- Temperance Movement
- Terrell, Mary Church
- Theatre
- Thomas, Clarence
- Thurman, Howard
- TransAfrica
- Truth, Sojourner
- Tubman, Harriet R.
- Tuskegee Experiment
- Tuskegee Machine
- Underground Railroad
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
- Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- Vietnam War
- Violence, Racial
- Voter Education Project (VEP)
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Wagner Act (1935)
- Walker, Alice
- Walker, David
- Walker, Madam C. J.
- Walker, Maggie Lena
- Washington, Booker T.
- Weaver, Robert C.
- Welfare
- Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
- Wheatley, Phillis
- White, Walter F.
- Wilder, L. Douglas
- Wilkins, Roy O.
- Williams, Robert F.
- Wilmington Ten
- Winfrey, Oprah G.
- Woods, Eldrick T. (Tiger)
- Woodson, Carter G.
- World War I
- World War II
- Wright, Richard
- Young, Andrew J.
- Young, Plummer B.
- Young, Whitney M.
- Index
- References
Wheatley, Phillis
from Entries
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Cross References
- Entries
- Abbott, Robert S.
- Abele, Julian F.
- Affirmative Action
- Africa
- African Blood Brotherhood (ABB)
- Afro-American Studies
- Agriculture
- AIDS
- Ali, Muhammad
- Allen, Richard
- American Revolution
- Anderson, Marian
- Angelou, Maya
- Anticommunism
- Antilynching Campaign
- Antislavery Movement
- Antiterror Wars
- Apartheid
- Architecture
- Art
- Ashe, Arthur R.
- Associated Negro Press (ANP)
- Atlanta Compromise (1895)
- Back-to-Africa Movement
- Baker, Ella J.
- Baker v. Carr (1962)
- Bakke v. Board of Regents of California (1978)
- Baldwin, James
- Barnett, Claude A.
- Bates, Daisy L.
- Bethune, Mary McLeod
- Birth of a Nation, The (1915)
- Black Arts Movement
- Black Belt
- Black Bourgeoisie (1957)
- Black Manifesto (1969)
- Black Nationalism
- Black Panther Party (BPP)
- Black Power Movement
- Black Towns
- Bloody Sunday
- Bond, Horace M.
- Bond, Julian
- Bouchet, Edward A.
- Brooke, Edward W.
- Brooks, Gwendolyn E.
- Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP)
- Brown, Charlotte Hawkins
- Brown, James N. (Jim)
- Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
- Buchanan v. Warley (1917)
- Buffalo Soldiers
- Bunche, Ralph J.
- Business
- Caesar, Shirley
- Capitalism
- Carmichael, Stokely (Kwame Turé)
- Carver, George Washington
- Chesnutt, Charles W.
- Children's Defense Fund (CDF)
- Chisholm, Shirley A.
- Cities
- Civil Rights Act of 1957
- Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
- Civil Rights Movement (CRM)
- Civil War
- Clark, Kenneth B.
- Clark, Septima P.
- Clubs
- Cold War
- Colonialism
- Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
- Constitution, US (1789)
- Conventions, National Negro
- Convict-Lease System
- Cooper, Anna Julia
- Cosby, William H. (Bill)
- Dance
- Davis, Angela Y.
- Davis, W. Allison
- Death Penalty
- Delany, Martin R.
- DePriest, Oscar S.
- Desegregation
- Divine, Father (George Baker)
- Douglass, Frederick
- Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)
- Drew, Charles R.
- Du Bois, W. E. B.
- Durham Manifesto (1942)
- Education
- Ellison, Ralph
- Emancipation
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
- Evers, Medgar W.
- Executive Order 9981 (1948)
- Exodusters
- Family
- Farmer, James L.
- Farrakhan, Louis A.
- Feminism
- Film
- Fisher, Miles Mark
- Foreign Affairs
- “Forty Acres and a Mule”
- Four Freedoms
- Franklin, Aretha L.
- Franklin, John Hope
- Fraternal Orders and Lodges
- Fraternities
- Free African Society (FAS)
- Free Blacks
- Freedmen's Bank
- Freedmen's Bureau
- Freedom Rides
- Freedom Summer
- Freedom Train
- Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
- Garvey, Marcus M.
- Ghetto
- G. I. Bill (1944)
- Gibson, Althea
- Gospel of Freedom
- Graves, Earl G.
- Great Depression
- Great Migration
- Haitian Revolution
- Hall, Prince
- Hamer, Fannie Lou
- Hampton–Tuskegee Idea
- Hancock, Gordon B.
- Handy, William C. (W. C.)
- Harlem Renaissance
- Harris, Abram L.
- Hastie, William H.
- Height, Dorothy I.
- Higginbotham, H. Leon
- Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
- Hope, John
- Horne, Lena M.
- Houston, Charles H.
- Hughes, Langston
- Humphrey–Hawkins Bill (1976)
- Immigration
- Indentured Servitude
- Indian Wars
- Institute of the Black World (IBW)
- Interracial Relations
- Jackson, Jesse L.
- Jackson, Luther P.
- Jackson, Mahalia
- Jackson, Michael J.
- Jacobs, Harriet A.
- Jemison, Mae C.
- Jobs Campaigns
- John Brown's Raid
- John Henryism
- Johnson, John A. (Jack)
- Johnson, John H.
- Johnson, Sargent C.
- Jordan, Barbara C.
- Jordan, Michael J.
- Journalism
- Journey of Reconciliation (1947)
- Just, Ernest E.
- Justice, US Department of
- Katzenbach v. McClung (1964)
- Kerner Report
- King, Martin Luther, Jr.
- Korean War
- Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
- Kwanzaa
- Labor
- Law Enforcement
- Lawson, James M.
- Lee, Shelton J. (Spike)
- Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)
- Lewis, Edmonia
- Lewis, John R.
- Lewis, Reginald F.
- “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
- Literature
- Little (X), Malcolm
- Little Rock Crisis
- Louis, Joe
- Loving v. Virginia (1967)
- Mandela, Nelson R.
- Manumission
- March on Washington (1963)
- March on Washington Movement (MOWM)
- Marshall, Thurgood
- Massive Resistance
- Mays, Benjamin E.
- McCoy, Elijah J.
- McKissick, Floyd B.
- McKissick v. Carmichael (1951)
- Medicine
- Micheaux, Oscar
- Military
- Milliken v. Bradley (1974)
- Minorities, Racial and Ethnic
- Miscegenation
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)
- Mitchell, Clarence M.
- Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Moore, Harry T.
- Morgan v. Virginia (1946)
- Morrison, Toni
- Moseley-Braun, Carol
- Motley, Constance Baker
- Moynihan Report
- Muhammad, Elijah
- Multiculturalism
- Murray, Pauli
- Music
- Nation of Islam (NOI)
- National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
- National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW)
- National Association of Colored Women (NACW)
- National Council of Negro Women (NCNW)
- National Urban League (NUL)
- Négritude
- Negro History Movement
- New Left
- New Negro Movement
- Niagara Movement
- Norris v. Alabama (1935)
- Obama, Barack H.
- Operation PUSH (People United to Save Humanity)
- Owens, James C. (Jesse)
- Pan-African Movement
- Parks, Gordon
- Parks, Rosa L.
- Persian Gulf War
- Philanthropy
- Photography
- Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
- Politics
- Port Chicago Mutiny (1944)
- Poverty
- Powell, Adam Clayton, Jr.
- Powell, Colin L.
- Race Labels
- Race Man/Woman
- Randolph, A. Philip
- Reconstruction (1865–77)
- Redistricting
- Religion
- Resegregation
- Rice, Condoleeza
- Robeson, Paul
- Robinson, Jack R. (Jackie)
- Roots
- Rosenwald Schools
- Rustin, Bayard T.
- Scholarship
- Science
- Segregation
- Share Croppers’ Union (SCU)
- Sharecropping
- Shaw v. Reno (1993)
- Sit-ins
- Slavery
- Smith v. Allwright (1944)
- Societies, Mutual Aid
- Sororities
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
- Southern Negro Youth Congress (SNYC)
- Spanish-American War
- Spaulding, Charles C.
- Sports
- State Convention of Colored Men of Texas (1883)
- Student Activism
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
- Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971)
- Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
- Talented Tenth
- Technology
- Television
- Temperance Movement
- Terrell, Mary Church
- Theatre
- Thomas, Clarence
- Thurman, Howard
- TransAfrica
- Truth, Sojourner
- Tubman, Harriet R.
- Tuskegee Experiment
- Tuskegee Machine
- Underground Railroad
- United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
- Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA)
- Vietnam War
- Violence, Racial
- Voter Education Project (VEP)
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Wagner Act (1935)
- Walker, Alice
- Walker, David
- Walker, Madam C. J.
- Walker, Maggie Lena
- Washington, Booker T.
- Weaver, Robert C.
- Welfare
- Wells-Barnett, Ida B.
- Wheatley, Phillis
- White, Walter F.
- Wilder, L. Douglas
- Wilkins, Roy O.
- Williams, Robert F.
- Wilmington Ten
- Winfrey, Oprah G.
- Woods, Eldrick T. (Tiger)
- Woodson, Carter G.
- World War I
- World War II
- Wright, Richard
- Young, Andrew J.
- Young, Plummer B.
- Young, Whitney M.
- Index
- References
Summary
Born: Circa 1753, Gambia, West Africa
Education: Taught by the Wheatley family
Died: December 5, 1784, Boston, MA
The first African woman and second American woman to publish a book, Wheatley rose to literary distinction. Born in the Gambia River region of West Africa and a member of the Fulani tribe, she was probably Muslim. Seized and shipped to America on the slaver Phillis, she was about eight when Boston merchant John Wheatley bought her (1761). Too frail for housework, she evinced aptitude to learn. So, using the Bible, English and Latin books, the family taught her to read and write. She accepted Christianity and baptism (1771), began writing letters and poems, and worshiped at the Old South Boston Meeting House, whose minister tutored her in the classics.
Freedom inspired Wheatley's works. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773) sang that “new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul.” Public praise for Poems and the author led John Wheatley to free her. “In every human Breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance,” Wheatley testified. She married black freeman John Peters in 1778, but they were very poor and she eventually died in childbirth. Her poetry paved the way for “the founding of African American literature” (Gates and McKay, 1997, p. 167).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Guide to African American History , pp. 297 - 298Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016