BOSTON, MA — On Thursday, January 29, 2026, the United States Postal Service issued the 49th stamp in its Black Heritage series, honoring Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784), the first author of African descent to publish a book in the American colonies. During the day of issue, there was a free and open to the public inside the historic Old South Meeting House – a space long associated with ideas, resistance, and the written word.
Wheatley’s life began in West Africa. She was brought across the Atlantic on a slave ship and sold into bondage as a child. Enslaved in the Wheatley household, she was nonetheless educated. In 1773, she published Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, a collection that revealed mastery of hymns and narrative verse at a level that stunned readers on both sides of the Atlantic. That same year she was freed.
Wheatley’s emergence as a published poet represents the collision between her legally enslaved position and her undeniable intellectual authority. Her words traveled often where she could not. She corresponded with leading figures of her time, including George Washington. Before the Civil War, abolitionists would later point to her life and work as evidence against claims of racial inferiority, using her poetry as a counterargument to pro-slavery ideology.
Today, Wheatley is often called the mother of African American literature. Recent renewed scholarly attention include major biographies published in 2011 and 2023 – part of an ongoing effort to fully document her life.
The Forever stamp was designed by USPS art director Antonio Alcala using an existing portrait by Kerry James Marshall.
