Phillis Wheatley's birthday?

From the Smithsonian:

Folks are tweeting that today is Phillis Wheatley's birthday. We can't confirm, but we do know that our 1773 edition of her collection of poems is the only edition published during her lifetime! Learn more on our Adopt-a-Book page: https://s.si.edu/2IlETX6

Maybe born on May 8th in West Africa (Senegal?) , Wheatley became the first African-American woman, the first U.S. slave and the first woman to publish a book of poetry in the colonies in 1773. Brought as a slave to the colonies around the age of seven, her intelligence attracted the attention of her owners who had her educated and saw that her first poems were published when she was only 13. She battled ill health all her life. Although she was eventually freed and married a freeman, she died around the age of 30. 

"Wheatley was the abolitionists’ illustrative testimony that blacks could be both artistic and intellectual. Her name was a household word among literate colonists and her achievements a catalyst for the fledgling antislavery movement."

She did speak out against slavery in a way that would reach the religious and influential people of her time. 

..."these bold lines in her poetic eulogy to General David Wooster castigate patriots who confess Christianity yet oppress her people:"

But how presumptuous shall we hope to find

Divine acceptance with the Almighty mind

While yet o deed ungenerous they disgrace

And hold in bondage Afric: blameless race

Let virtue reign and then accord our prayers

Be victory ours and generous freedom theirs.."

https://www.biography.com/people/phillis-wheatley-9528784

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/phillis-wheatley

The Life of Frederick Douglass

One of the most important and painfully honest narratives of slavery ever written. Historians gush over "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as being a precipitating, eye opener for Abolition of Slavery but this book - and Douglas himself- was far more important:

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

A dramatic autobiography and powerful firsthand account of slavery

Grade 9 Up-This classic text in both American literature and American history is read by Pete Papageorge with deliberation and simplicity, allowing the author's words to bridge more than 160 years to today's listeners. Following a stirring preface by William Lloyd Garrison (who, nearly 20 years after he first met Douglass, would himself lead the black troops fighting from the North in the Civil War), the not-yet-30-year-old author recounts his life's story, showing effective and evocative use of language as well as unflinchingly examining many aspects of the Peculiar Institution of American Slavery. Douglass attributes his road to freedom as beginning with his being sent from the Maryland plantation of his birth to live in Baltimore as a young boy. There, he learned to read and, more importantly, learned the power of literacy. In early adolescence, he was returned to farm work, suffered abuse at the hands of cruel overseers, and witnessed abuse visited on fellow slaves. He shared his knowledge of reading with a secret "Sunday school" of 40 fellow slaves during his last years of bondage. In his early 20's, he ran away to the North and found refuge among New England abolitionists. Douglass, a reputed orator, combines concrete description of his circumstances with his own emerging analysis of slavery as a condition. This recording makes his rich work available to those who might feel encumbered by the printed page and belongs as an alternative in all school and public library collections.
Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

'Emancipating the Past. Kara Walker's tales of Slavery and Power' at the Crocker.

A decade or more before Hollywood started using slavery for its exploitative value, Walker was making work that plumbed the depths of American's "peculiar institution" and mainstream society's hostile and cruel treatment to those who had been brought here forcibly from Africa to work the tobacco and cotton fields for the benefit of their white masters.

More at:  http://www.examiner.com/article/emancipating-the-past-kara-walker-s-tales-of-slavery-and-power-at-the-crocker

'The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, Where Art and History Intersect'

Bernard and Shirley Kinsey

To honor the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, the Museum of the African Diaspora and Wells Fargo are hosting the "The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey, Where Art and History Intersect."

Throughout their 43-years of marriage, Bernard and Shirley Kinsey have explored and celebrated their African American heritage by collecting items of historical and cultural significance.

Romare Bearden. Falling Star. 1979

Kinsey a Los Angeles philanthropist and entrepreneur and his wife Shirley are famously known for espousing two life principles, “To whom much is given much is required" and live “A life of no regrets." They have collected pieces from those whose works resonate with their belief that education was the key to wisdom and upward mobility.

Floridians by birth and graduates of Florida A&M University, they began collecting as a way to remember their travels, but the collection soon became a repository for African American intellectual, historical and artistic works.

Elizabeth Catlett. Jackie. 1974.

The Kinsey collection is now one of the largest private collections of African American art, with artifacts, documents and artwork spanning 400 years of history.

A history of the African American in art is charted through works by numerous celebrated artists, including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Sam Gilliam, Palmer Hayden, Richard Hunt, Lois Mailou Jones, Artis Lane, Richard Mayhew, James Porter and Henry O. Tanner.

Although the exhibit is rich in African-American painting and sculpture, the documents are what provide the core and the emotional charge of the show. The Kinsey collection highlights objects, letters and documents offering an unflinching look at slavery from the perspective of Africans who survived it, Union soldiers who fought it and slave owners who perpetuated it.

On display is the first document collected by Bernard Kinsey. Dated 1832, it was a bill of sale for an 18-year old male, being sold along with cattle, horses and farm implements. 

The collection contains a rare 1789 copy of the first, first-person narrative of the slave trade, written by Olaudah Equiano. Enslaved as a child, he later was able to buy his freedom and worked for the abolition of slavery.

Among the original documents is a 1798 proclamation, declaring that "any person may kill these escaped brothers." If they were caught, it was their death warrant.

Jonathan Green. Field Hands. 1988

In 1854, an owner sent his 17-year old slave to be sold so he could buy some horses. He was so upset that he couldn't tell her about the letter she was carrying. He was upset; one can only image how she felt to be sold away from her family.

A first edition of the autobiography of Frederick Douglas is on display and even more thrillingly, the pamphlet of his famous 1852 speech.

On July 5, 1852, the Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society of Rochester, New York, invited Douglass to be the keynote speaker for their Independence Day celebration.

In this fiery speech, Douglass powerfully asks the crowd if it was their intention to mock him by inviting him to speak on the Fourth of July. He notes in the seventh paragraph, "The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me."

On the wall is the 1863 edition Mercury News, with a page open to the list of auctions. One of the slaves for sale was a 2-year old named Jassy.

Through May 13, 2013

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-kinsey-collection-shared-treasures-of-bernard-and-shirley-kinsey-at-moad

http://www.moadsf.org/