October 18 | Moments Almanac | Wheatley

Welcome to Moments Almanac for October 18th. There are some things in life that should never have to be proven. The dignity of a human being, the worth of a human soul, the right to be free, but in Boston, in the 18th century, a young African woman found herself having to prove something else, that the poetry she had written had actually come from her own mind. Her name was Phyllis Wheatley, and this is her story. We remember Phyllis as a young woman whose words crossed an ocean, challenged the assumptions of an age, and helped open a door to freedom. And it all began with a little girl who had lost almost everything. We don't know the original name. We don't know the precise village where she was born. We don't know the names of her parents. What we do know is that around the age of seven she was taken from West Africa, forced aboard a slave ship, and carried across the ocean. The ship's name was Phyllis. And when she arrived in Boston in 1761, that became her name, Phyllis. She was purchased by John Wheatley, a prosperous Boston merchant and his wife Susanna. The family gave her the surname Phyllis Wheatley. Imagine that for a moment, a child stripped of her homeland, separated from her family and given a new name in a strange country. And yet within that little girl was a mind that would astonish the world. The Wheatley family taught her to read and write something denied to countless enslaved people in colonial America, and Phyllis learned with extraordinary speed. She studied English, she studied Latin, she became familiar with Greek mythology, classic literature, and the scriptures, and by the time she was thirteen she was writing poetry. Not simply little verses or childhood rhymes, sophisticated poetry that drew from ancient history, Christian theology, and literary traditions of the day. Her words began to circulate, people took notice, and then something remarkable happened. Her poetry attracted attention across the Atlantic. In 1773, Phyllis traveled to London where her first collection was published, poems on various subjects, religious and moral. She was about twenty years old, and with that publication she became the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry, but before her book appeared she faced an extraordinary indignity. Some of Boston's most prominent men had examined her claim of authorship. They could scarcely believe that an enslaved African woman could write poetry of such sophistication, and so they questioned her. They examined her, they required proof. A statement signed by these men was included in the book affirming that Phyllis Wheatley had indeed written the poems. She could write the poetry, but she needed powerful men to convince the world that she had written it. Now, Phyllis was a woman of deep Christian faith. Her poetry frequently spoke of God, salvation, providence, and eternity, and here was an enslaved African woman reminding Christians that God's grace was not limited to the color of one's skin, that a black soul was just as precious before God as a white one, that the gates of heaven were not guarded by the prejudices of earth. Her poetry was not always a direct protest against slavery. Some of her words remain difficult and debated even today, but in other writings she spoke plainly about the human longing for liberty and the cruelty of oppression. She knew what it meant to be owned, and she knew what it meant to long for freedom. And that came in the autumn of seventeen seventy three. On this day, Phyllis returned to Boston from England. Her book had been published, her reputation had grown, and sometime after her return, John Wheatley granted her freedom. On october eighteenth, seventeen seventy three, she wrote a letter to Colonel David Wooster, describing her newly acquired liberty. The exact date of her emancipation is uncertain, but on october eighteenth, Phyllis Wheatley was no longer enslaved. She was free. What an extraordinary moment. A little girl who had crossed the ocean in chains had grown into a woman whose words crossed that same ocean in a book. And now she possessed something that should never have been taken from her in the first place, her freedom. But her story was far from over. On 1775 she wrote a poem honoring George Washington, who was leading the American struggle for independence. Washington was so impressed that he responded with a letter of appreciation and invited her to visit him. They apparently met the following year. Imagine the scene a black woman who had once been enslaved meeting the general who would become America's first president, and a nation proclaiming liberty while continuing to hold human beings in bondage. History is chock full with those kinds of contradictions, and sometimes the contradictions are the best way to reveal the life of a single person. Sadly, freedom did not bring Phyllis an easy life. She married John Peters, a free black man in 1778, but the years that followed were marked with poverty, hardship, and disappointment. The literary world that had celebrated her remarkable talent did not provide lasting security. She struggled to publish more of her work. She was just trying to survive. And on December 5th, 1784, Phyllis Wheatley died in Boston. She was only thirty-one years old. Her infant child died around the same time. It was a heartbreaking ending to an extraordinary life. But her words lived on, and they still speak. I keep coming back to something about Phyllis Wheatley's story. She had to prove that she could think, then she had to prove that she could write, and then she had to prove that the words on the page were her own, but she never should have had to prove any of that because she was a human. Because human dignity is not something we earn through intelligence, it's not something we acquire through education, it's not something we receive because we became successful, talented, famous, or admired. It's something that God has already given us. The Bible tells us in Genesis that human beings are created in the image of God, Imago Day. Not just some human beings, not just powerful, not just educated, not just those whose voices are welcomed in the halls of influence, all of us. And that's the great lesson Phyllis Wheatley leaves us today. A society may refuse to recognize someone's worth, it may silence their voice, it may question their abilities, it may even deny their freedom, but it cannot erase the image of God within them. On October 17, 1773, Phyllis Wheatley wrote about the freedom that she had finally received. She had already written poems that had crossed an ocean. She had already astonished the literary world. She had already demonstrated a brilliance that no one could honestly deny. But her greatest worth was never found in her poetry. It was found in the simple sacred truth that she was a human being, created in the image of God, worthy of dignity, worthy of respect, worthy of freedom. And that had been true long before anyone ever read a single word she wrote. And that's Moments Almanac for October 18th. I hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments, and share the grace.