region, with its thirty or forty million people and its territory as large
as a half a dozen Frances or Germanys, there is not a single poet, not a
serious historian, not a creditable composer, not a critic good or bad,
not a dramatist dead or alive.

But, even so, the American Negro has accomplished something in pure
literature. The list of those who have done so would be surprising both by
its length and the excellence of the achievements. One of the great books
written in this country since the Civil War is the work of a colored man,
"The Souls of Black Folk," by W.E.B. Du Bois.

Such a list begins with Phillis Wheatley. In 1761 a slave ship landed a
cargo of slaves in Boston. Among them was a little girl seven or eight
years of age. She attracted the attention of John Wheatley, a wealthy
gentleman of Boston, who purchased her as a servant for his wife. Mrs.
Wheatley was a benevolent woman. She noticed the girl's quick mind and
determined to give her opportunity for its development. Twelve years later
Phillis published a volume of poems. The book was brought out in London,
where Phillis was for several months an object of great curiosity and
attention.

Phillis Wheatley has never been given her rightful place in American
literature. By some sort of conspiracy she is kept out of most of the
books, especially the text-books on literature used in the schools. Of
course, she is not a _great_ American poet--and in her day there were
no great American poets--but she is an important American poet. Her
importance, if for no other reason, rests on the fact that, save one, she
is the first in order of time of all the women poets of America. And she
is among the first of all American poets to issue a volume.