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The BRONZEMAN          Thirteen

Distinguished Negroes

A Story of Black Men and Women in American History

SHOULD BEGIN TO DISREGARD THE ASSUMPTIONS THAT NOURISH AND SUSTAIN THESE WRONGS – SOCIAL INJUSTICES. I REFER SPECIFICALLY TO THE "RACIAL-INFERIORITY" BELIEFS, AND THE TACIT ACCEPTANCE OF THE CIRCUMSCRIBED, SOCIAL SPHERE ASSIGNED TO HIM MUST BE RELEGATED TO THE LIMBO OF FORGOTTEN THINGS. HE MUST NOW BEGIN TO LABOR, ASSIDUOUSLY, TO CREATE COUNTER CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES THROUGH MASS ACTION, MASS CONCENTRATION OF THOUGHT AND ACTION, THAT WILL AUTOMATICALLY REMOVE THE SOCIAL DISABILITIES AND HINDRANCES ATHWART THE PATH OF HIS PROGRESSIVE UNFOLDMENT.

Resuming my opening argument, the indifference of Negro youths toward Negro History is nurtured by the absence, in very many instances, of race consciousness on the part of the grown-ups – the parents of Negro youths.

It is the hope of the thinkers and leaders of our social life – those who are the salt of the earth – that the future may make possible a happier association of the various, racial groups than that which now exists. Such happy relationship will mean the realization of the aims and ideals of the ethics of Christianity.

I do hope that, at this point, I have cleared the way for an intelligent appreciation of the historical sketches of the lives of distinguished Negro men and women, past and present, which I shall contribute, as I have hereinbefore remarked.

Phillis Wheatley

Of Phillis Wheatley I shall offer a meager pen-picture. When but a frail child, of six or eight years of age, she was transported from Africa to Boston, Massachusetts. She was one of the many unfortunates of a slave-ship. It is interesting to observe how curiously fortunate or unfortunate may become the life of a person by a simple, fortuitous occurrence. Phillis was indeed fortunate in having Boston for her destination, instead of some other port of entry, and fair being sold to John Wheatley, a Boston tailor and merchant. She might not have experienced the kindly fate which the ownership of John Wheatley secured for her. Probably, had she been docked at Charleston, South Carolina, or at Port of Spain, Trinidad, of the Lesses Antilles, nothing worth while would have been recorded of her day.

[[image – drawing of a young man in three-quarter profile, looking right; he is somewhat light-skinned, and wearing a frock coat over what is probably a vest out of which a white collar extends upward to the neck line]]
[[caption]] Benjamin Banneker [[/caption]]

Phillis' talents were early discovered by her kindly disposed owners, Mr. and Mrs. Wheatley, who encouraged and nurtured her precocity. This youthful prodigy read, with avidity, the masterpieces of English literature. She familiarized herself with the neoclassical niceties and technicalities of the poetical school of Alexander Pope and his contemporaries. She also became a Latinist.

The forty-six poems which Phillis Wheatley has written reveal a mastery which is described as "sophisticated rather than primitive, artificial rather than spontaneous, polished rather than crude." The spirit and execution of her work, while she was yet a mere child, liken themselves to the poetical accomplishments of Alexander Pope, himself. Here is a poem, written six years after her arrival in Boston. During that period of six years, not only had Phillis acquired a thorough knowledge of the English language, but she had become a matured poet besides! This poem was written when she was only fourteen years old.

"To The University of Cambridge in New England
"See Him, with hands outstretch' d upon the cross!
Divine compassion in his bosom glows.
He hears revilers with oblique regard.
What condescension in the Son of God!
When the whole human race, by Sin had fall'n;
He deign'd to die, that they might rise again,
To live with Him beyond the starry sky,
Life without death, and Glory without And."

Phillis Wheatley, after the publication of two London editions of her poems, accompanied Nathaniel Wheatley, son of her master, two London, England. That trip was made about the summer of 1773. There she was received, "not as a slave but as an honored guest, and the house of the Countess of Huntingdon." She also met other notables among whom was Book Watson, who subsequently became Lord Mayor of London. He gave her a copy of Milton's Paradise Lost. Arrangements had been made for a formal presentation of Phillis Wheatley to George III, King of England, at the Court of St. James; but the waning health of her mistress, whom she loved dearly, cause her to forgo that signal honor and hasten back to America.

After the death of Mrs. Wheatley, Phillis' mistress, a series of misfortunes afflicted her. Her greatest adversity was her marital alliance to one John Peters, a "free Negro." His un-gentlemanly conduct and irresponsibility caused his wife the loss of the friendship of almost all her white friends. Those who might have remembered her word now too absorbed in the progress of the Revolutionary War to think of their slave poetess. She bore her husband and three children. Phillis experienced the pangs of poverty, and died in 1786 at the age of thirty-one years.

The poems of this renowned author appeared in such publications as these: Royal American Magazine (1774-5), Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society (1863-4), the Evening Post and the General Advertiser (Boston, 1789).

The following letter was written to Phillis Wheatley by George Washington, the first President of this country, in connection with a poem, written by Phillis, addressed to him:

Cambridge, February 2, 1776.
Miss Phillis: Your favor of the 20th of October did not reach my hand 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you say, to have given an 
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