The 49th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors poet Phillis Wheatley (ca 1753–1784), the first author of African descent in the American colonies to publish a book. An enslaved woman with an education and prominent social connections, Wheatley occupied a rare place in colonial America. Her poems charmed readers on both sides of the Atlantic and offer subtle commentary on her times, while Wheatley herself has inspired generations of writers.
The stamp art features a black-and-white ink-on-paper portrait of Wheatley by Kerry James Marshall, who imagines her later in life, working on her second, unpublished book of poems. The design recalls the only known portrait made during her lifetime, the engraved frontispiece of her 1773 book. While that image shows Wheatley in profile, Marshall presents her looking directly at the viewer, even as she wears similar clothing and sits at the same desk. The style of his ink-on-paper portrait echoes the hatched lines of the original engraving but reinterprets the portrait, depicting Wheatley as confident, assertive, and free.
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