Since the late 1800s, African American women have organized to create memorials commemorating Black women across time. As members of clubs, preservation organizations, and other groups, Black women have told their own stories through public history.
During the Jim Crow era, the most memorialized Black woman in America was the writer Phillis Wheatley. Born in West Africa around 1753, Wheatley was kidnapped as a child, sold into slavery, and brought to Boston, where she learned English and became a poet. She is considered the first African American author of a published book of poetry. More than a century after her death, Wheatley’s legacy was kept alive by Black women living across the United States, from Massachusetts to New Mexico.
In this online talk, Dr. Alexandria Russell, the author of Black Women Legacies: Public History Sites Seen & Unseen, shared the major themes of her book and traced the remarkable efforts to memorialize Phillis Wheatley. Facing limited resources and widespread discrimination, Black women operated with resourcefulness and savvy to create public memorials that shaped American culture.
