Phillis Wheatley/Women’s Memorial, Boston, MA

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Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753-1784), an eighteenth-century African-American woman who was a slave and a poet, was the first black American to be published. She is also credited with originating the genres of African-American poetry and African-American women’s literature. Due to the fact tha no one in America was willing to print her works, her first writings were actually published in London, England. In fact, Americans initially doubted that a slave woman could have written these poems, and so Wheatley was subjected to an interrogation by several prominent Bostonian men to determine whether she did indeed write them. They concluded that she did.

The statue is part of the Boston Women’s Memorial on Commonwealth Avenue, a series of three statues of Bostonian women by Meredith Bergmann: Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone. This poem, which gives a taste of her work, is inscribed on the memorial:

” Imagination! Who can sing thy force?
Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?
Soaring through air to find the bright abode,
Th’ empyreal palace of the thund’ring God,
We on thy pinions can surpass the wind,
And leave the rolling universe behind:
From star to star the mental optics rove,
Measure the skies, and range the realms above.
There in one view we grasp the mighty whole,
Or with new worlds amaze th’ unbounded soul. “

A rare signed edition of Phillis Wheatley’s poetry from 1773

Phillis Wheatley, Boston Women’s Memorial
Address: Commonwealth Ave. between Arlington St. and Massachusetts Ave., Boston, MA
Phone: N/A
Official Website: N/A
Map & Driving Directions

Black Heritage Trail, Boston, MA

The Black Heritage Trail® explores the history of the 19th century free Black community of Boston. The trail consists of 14 sites, and begins at the Robert Gould Shaw Memorial on Beacon Street and finishes at the Museum of African American History which includes the African Meeting House and the Abiel Smith School. Self-guided tours can be conducted at any time, Monday through Sunday. Maps and site brochures can be obtained at the Abiel Smith School during site hours.

Sites on the Black Heritage Trail® include:

• Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial
• George Middleton House
• Phillips School
• John J. Smith House
• Charles Street Meeting House
• Lewis and Harriet Hayden House
• John Coburn House
• Smith Court Residences
• Abiel Smith School
• African Meeting House

The sites along the Black Heritage Trail are part of Boston African American National Historic Site is comprised of the largest area of pre-Civil War black owned structures in the U.S. It has roughly two dozen sites on the north face of Beacon Hill. These historic buildings were homes, businesses, schools, and churches of a thriving black community that, in the face of great opposition, fought the forces of slavery and inequality.