People, Locations, Episodes

The First American Book of Poetry by a Black Woman is Published.

*On this date in 1773, the first book of poetry written by a Black woman was published in America.

Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral by Phillis Wheatley was published. When her owner the Wheatley’s saw her writing on a wall with chalk. Rather than punish her, the Wheatley’s encouraged her to learn. Their daughter tutored her in reading and writing. Wheatley also studied English literature, Latin, and the Bible, but what she did best was to write poetry.

John Jea, Writer and Abolitionist born

*John Jea’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1773. He was a Black writer, preacher, abolitionist, and sailor. Little is known about John Jea’s life apart from what he wrote in his autobiography, The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher (1811). Jea said that he was born near Calabar in the Bight […]

Francis Scott Key, Poet, and Slave Owner born

*Francis Scott Key was born on this date in 1779. He was a white-American slave owner, lawyer, author, and poet.    Key was born to Ann Phoebe Penn Dagworthy (Charlton) and Captain John Ross Key at the family plantation Terra Rubra in what is now Carroll County, Maryland. His father was a slave owner, lawyer, judge, and officer in the Continental Army. His great-grandparents on his father’s side, Philip […]

Austin Steward, Author, and Businessman born

*The birth of Austin Steward in 1793 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black slave, businessman, administrator and biographer of his life as a slave in America.

George Moses Horton, Poet born

*The birth of George Moses Horton in 1797 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black poet, and publisher.

Alexander Pushkin, Black Russian Poet, and Novelist born

*The birth of Alexander Pushkin in 1799 is celebrated on this date. He was a Black Russian poet and the great-grandson of Abraham Hannibal, an African general and friend of Peter the Great.

Nancy Prince, Abolitionist, and Writer born

*Nancy Prince was born on this date in 1799. She was a Black abolitionist and writer.   Nancy Gardner Prince was born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Her father, Thomas Gardner, was a wailer. Little is known about Prince’s family life. Her father, a seaman, died when she was an infant, leaving her in the care of […]

Black Poetry; Deep, Beautiful, and Unique

On this date the Registry celebrates African American poetry.

Through their culture and work, Black poets, forced by a dominant culture which constantly negates them, to question what it means to be human, to be American, to be Black, continue a definitive quest for identity. African American poetry represents a blend of the public and the private in the journey toward voice and freedom.

Lydia Child, Abolitionist Writer born

*Lydia Maria Francis Child was born on this date in 1802. She was a White American abolitionist writer.

From Medford, Massachusetts, Child began to write popular historical novels in her twenties. In 1826 she established a periodical for children called Juvenile Miscellany and her book, The Frugal Housewife 1829, was particularly popular. After hearing William Lloyd Garrison speak at a public meeting in 1831, Child began her involvement in the campaign against slavery. This included her book An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans 1833.

Alexandre Dumas, Writer born

Alexandre Dumas was born on this date in 1802. He was a Black French man who was one of the more prolific writers in the 19th century theater world.

Robert Benjamin Lewis, Author and Inventor born

*Robert Benjamin Lewis’s birth is celebrated on this date in 1802. He was an African and Native American author, ethnologist, and inventor. He was born in the portion of Pittston, Maine, which later became the city of Gardiner. He was the eldest son of Matthias Lewis and Lucy (Stockbridge) Lewis. Matthias Lewis was either a Mohegan from […]

Angelina Emily Grimké, Abolitionist born

*Angelina Emily Grimké was born on this date in 1805. She was a white-American political activist, women’s rights advocate, and supporter of the women’s suffrage movement. She and her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, became abolitionists. While raised in Charleston, South Carolina, Angelina and her sister spent their entire adult lives in the North. Between 1835, Angelina Grimke’s greatest fame worked with William Lloyd Garrison, who published […]

Alexis de Tocqueville, French Investigative Writer born

Alexis de Tocqueville was born this date in 1805. He was a White French journalist and abolitionist writer.

He was born in Paris to Herve-Bonaventure Clerel de Tocqueville and Louise Le Peletier de Rosanbo. His older brothers were named Hippolyte and Edouard. Tocqueville came from an aristocratic background. He had a private tutor, the abbe Lesueur, until high school, and then attended high school and college in Metz. He studied law in Paris and worked as a substitute judge in Versailles before coming to America in 1831, when he was 25 years old.

Sarah M. Douglass, Writer, and Teacher born

The birth of Sarah Mapps Douglass in 1806 is marked on this date. She was a Black educator and abolitionist.

Born in Philadelphia, Douglass was the daughter of Robert Douglass and Grace Bustill Douglass. Her grandfather was Cyrus Bustill, a Quaker, who owned a bakery, operated a school, and was one of the early members of the Free African Society, the first Afro-American charity organization. Her mother operated a millinery store next to the family bakery. Young Douglass entered the “colored” school that her mother and the wealthy Negro shipbuilder James Forten established in 1819.

Solomon Northup, Abolitionist, and Author born

*Solomon Northup was born on this date in 1807. He was a Black musician, abolitionist, and author. Born in Rhode Island, he was taken with the Northup family when they moved to Hoosick, New York, in Rensselaer County.   His father, Mintus, was a freedman who had been a slave in his early life in […]