PROFILE: Phillis Wheatley

By Victor Olubiye

She was named after the ship that tore her from her homeland — Phillis And Wheatley came from the Boston merchant who bought her. Born in Senegal, she was just seven when she was taken, stripped of everything familiar and forced across an ocean. On the auction block, men appraised her like livestock. “She’ll make a good mare,” they said, handling her small body with callous disregard. But within that frightened, stolen child, something remained unbroken — a sacred ember no chain could extinguish.

By thirteen, Phillis Wheatley was writing poetry in the language forced upon her, her verses carrying rhythm, grace, and fierce intellect. But many doubted her. At twenty, she was summoned before a panel of eighteen white men — scholars, judges, and ministers — who demanded she prove her abilities. They made her recite Milton and Virgil, interrogated her on scripture, pressed her to justify her genius. She sat with quiet strength, not to ask for their permission, but to command their recognition of what was already true.

In the end, they could not deny it: she was Black, she was enslaved — and she was a poet. Phillis Wheatley became the first African-American to publish a book in the United States. Her words, shaped by fire and dignity, cut deeper than any shackle. She didn’t choose her name, but through her pen, she transformed it — line by line — into a symbol not of bondage, but of brilliance and defiance.