Phyllis Wheatley: The Woman Who Wrote Herself Free

Celebrating Women's History Month with a badass a day.

There’s a story that feels like a miracle, one of a woman who looked at a world that tried to erase her and said, “I am here.” Her name was Phyllis Wheatley, and she wasn’t just a poet. She was a trailblazer.

Phyllis was born in West Africa around 1753. When she was just seven or eight years old, she was kidnapped, enslaved, and brought to Boston on a sl…