Remembering Phillis Wheatley

Our Black History month just ended. But Black History scroll is long - longer than time itself. Today I reminisce over the life of Phillis Wheatley. History says she was born somewhere in the Gambia, or perhaps Senegal, in 1753. She was sold to slavery (yeah, heck!) at the age of seven (7). That’s how young she was when she was packaged and sailed across waters to the Americas in a slave ship called ‘The Phillis.’ Phillis Wheatley isn’t, of course, her birth name. Wheatley comes from her slave masters’ name who named her after the ship on which she was brought to them. The name her mother gave her remained in West Africa – in tongues and memories of her family.  Phillis became a poet. Yes, she wrote poetry and became the first black person to be published. It wasn’t easy, but she did it, despite the hash slavery circumstances. Somehow, she was laying the first slate that would pave way to a string of black writers of later years. We writers of today, published and unpublished, established and aspiring, are standing on foundations laid by Phillis Wheatley.  We need to strive to make it in the rather hash and cruel conditions we sometimes find ourselves entangled within. I, for one, will write. I will write zillions of words. I will write until my computer runs out of pages. The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my computer keys.