I love discovering people. Even as I lament: Man, I should have known this.
I should have known Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.
The Black Muse was how the poet, teacher, writer and lecturer came to be known as she rose to literary prowess during the 19th century. Rose to being, by some accounts, the preeminent Black female voice of her time.
Born free in Maryland, she was orphaned at the age of three when both parents died. Frances came to be raised by an aunt and uncle, Henrietta and Henry Watkins. Henry was a staunch abolitionist and educator, both of which shaped the young girl’s path.
She attended the school he founded and was influenced by his abolitionist views. At 13 she developed a love for books while working for a white family that owned a bookstore.
She published her first book of poems, “Forest Leaves,” at the age of 20, in 1845, and in subsequent years became a sought-after lecturer, travelling the nation to speak against slavery.
Interestingly, she could not return home after Maryland passed a law deeming any free Blacks found in the state would be arrested and sold into slavery.
She lived and worked as a teacher in Ohio and Pennsylvania while continuing to write poems and other works, and lecture. Her poetry was published in abolitionist publications, including Frederick Douglass’ Paper. (Here’s a fascinating timeline of her life and works.)
By 1859, she published a second book of poems (“Poems in Miscellaneous Subjects”) and saw her short story, “Two Offers,” on educating Black women, published in Anglo-African Magazine. The latter, according to historians, was the first short story published by an African American woman. The very first.
Throughout her years she was a preeminent advocate for Black women, for education, jobs, and equitable rights. Among her numerous commitments she, in 1896, co-founded the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs . The org comprises, per its website, “women of color dedicated to uplifting women, children, families, the home and the community through service, community education, scholarship assistance and the promotion of racial harmony among all people, so that those we serve are better able to take their proper and rightful place in society as citizens, community leaders, parents and family members.”
Man, I should have known Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. We all should have.
On this date, February 22, 1911, in Philadelphia.
If you didn’t know, now you know.
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