Stewart’s writings reveal her deeply held concern for the plight of Black Americans. Despite receiving no formal education, Stewart became the first American woman known to have spoken before a mixed audience of Black and White men and women, as well as the first American woman to speak publicly on women’s rights and the abolition of slavery.Īfter publishing a collection of her lectures in his newspaper, The Liberator, prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison recruited Stewart to write for The Liberator in 1831. She worked in the home as a servant until age 15 while developing a lifelong affinity for religion.
#Famous books by black authors free
Born to a free Black family in Hartford, Connecticut in 1803, she lost both of her parents at age three and was sent to live in the home of a white minister and his wife. Maria Stewart (1803 - December 17, 1879) was a free-born Black American teacher, journalist, lecturer, abolitionist, and civil rights activist.
Kean Collection/Archive Photos/Getty Images The masthead of weekly abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, 1850. I mourned sore like a dove and chattered forth my sorrow, moaning in the corners of the field, and under the fences.” I betook myself to prayer, and in every lonely place, I found an altar. After this time, finding as my mother said, I had none in the world to look to but God, I betook myself to prayer, and in every lonely place I found an altar. “On reaching the farm, I found the overseer was displeased at me … He tied me with a rope, and gave me some stripes (administered a whipping) of which I carried the marks for weeks. In her words, Elizabeth exposed the desperation felt by so many young enslaved Americans. In 1863, at age 97, she dictated her best-known work, Memoir of Old Elizabeth, a Coloured Woman, to Philadelphia publisher John Collins. After several towns refused to accept a woman minister, she held prayer meetings in private homes in Virginia, Maryland, Michigan, and Canada. Now a free 39-year-old Black woman, Elizabeth traveled and preached. After returning to her family for a few years, she was sold twice, finally to a Presbyterian minister who freed her from enslavement in 1805. In 1777, at age eleven, Elizabeth was sold to a plantation owner several miles from her family. Elizabeth’s father, a devoted member of the Methodist Society, exposed her to religion while reading to his children from the Bible. Old Elizabeth (1766 - 1866) was born an enslaved person in Maryland in 1766. Her name by then a household word in the colonies, Wheatley’s achievements catalyzed the antislavery movement. In the late 17th century, American abolitionists cited her poems as evidence that Black people were just as capable as Whites of excellence in both artistic and intellectual pursuits. Published in London in 1773, Wheatley’s anthology Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral-in which she declares that her love of freedom had come from having been a slave-brought her fame in England and colonial America and was praised by prominent Americans including George Washington. In August 1761, she was purchased “for a trifle” by the wealthy Wheatley family of Boston who taught her to read and write, immersing her in studies of the Bible, astronomy, geography, history, and literature. Born in Gambia or Senegal, West Africa, she was seized by slave traders at age seven and transported to Boston aboard a slave ship called The Phillis. 1753 - December 5, 1784) was the first published African American poet and one of the most widely read poets in pre-19th century America. She began writing poetry at the age of thirteen and is recognized as the country's first notable African-American poet. Below, he's joined by Harris’s niece, Meena Harris, author Andrea Davis Pinkney, “Bookmarks” host Marley Dias and former NFL player Malcolm Mitchell in curating these suggestions that celebrate and reflect the Black experience for Black History Month 2021 and throughout the year.Phillis Wheatley (1753 - 1784), an American slave educated by her owner. So there’s never been a better time to celebrate the achievements and experiences of those who came before.īestselling author Kwame Alexander stopped by TODAY to share some of his favorite books celebrating Black history for people of all ages.
Kamala Harris has taken office as the first Black woman to be our nation’s vice president, an achievement that comes amid a national reckoning on racism. This February, Black History Month is undoubtedly a time when history is being made.
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