Phillis Wheatley / by an unidentified artist / Engraving on paper, 1773 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Poet Phillis Wheatley was brought to Boston, Massachusetts, on a slave ship in 1761, after having  been kidnapped at age seven or eight.  She was purchased by John Wheatley as a personal servant to his wife Susanna. As was the custom at the time, Phillis was given the last name of her master.  Her first name Phillis was derived from the ship that brought her to America, “the Phillis.”   She is believed to have been born in Senegal/Gambia around 1753. 

The Wheatleys educated Phillis and within sixteen months she could read the Bible and Latin and Greek classics.  She also studied astronomy and geography. In 1767, Wheatley wrote her first published poem at around age 13. The work, a story about two men who nearly drown at sea, was printed in the Newport Mercury.  Wheatley’s fame grew with the publication of other poems.

Her first and only volume, “Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral”, was published in 1773, making her the first African American and one of the first women to publish a book of poetry in the colonies.  This volume was published as a result of patronage from Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, in England.  The Countess was a friend of Susanna Wheatley.  The volume included a preface signed by seventeen Boston men as proof of her authorship.  One of those men was John Hancock.  The financial support from the Countess of Huntingdon allowed her to go to London for the publication and promotion of her book and treatment for a health problem.

In the years immediately following her return from England Wheatley’s life changed drastically.  She was freed from slavery but the deaths of Susanna (d. 1774) and John (d. 1778) Wheatley were devastating to her.  Also in 1778 she married a free African American from Boston, John Peters.

Wheatley, strongly and publicly supported America’s fight for independence.  In 1775 she sent one of several poems she had written about him to George Washington, then the Commander of the Continental Army.  This prompted him to extend an invitation to Wheatley to visit him at his headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She accepted the invitation and visited him in March of 1776.

The marriage to Peters proved to be a constant struggle with poverty.  Wheatley gave birth to three children, all of whom died in infancy.  While Wheatley continued to write, she was unsuccessful in finding a publisher for her second volume of poetry.  Ultimately John Peters abandoned her and, unable to support herself with her writing, she was forced to work as a maid in a boarding house in squalid conditions.

Wheatley died in her early 30s in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 5, 1784, from complications of childbirth.  She died in poverty.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary  (1823-1893)

Do you know the name Mary Ann Shadd Cary, lawyer, educator, suffragist?  Chances are you don’t, but you should.  She was believed to be the first black woman in North America to edit and publish a newspaper; one of the first female Africa American lawyers in the United States; the first black woman to actively recruit troops for the Union Army; and one of 600 citizens who in January, 1874,signed a petition that suffragists presented to the House Judiciary Committee, claiming a woman’s legal right to vote, and later testifying before that Committee.   It is quite  a list accomplishments for a woman, especially a black woman, given the obstacles she had to overcome because she was both black and a woman.

Born Mary Ann Shadd in Wilmington, Delaware, on October 9, 1823, she was the oldest of the 13 children of free African American parents Abraham D. Shadd and Harriet Burton Parnell.  In 1833 her parents moved to West Chester, Pennsylvania.  There she was able to attend a Quaker boarding school until she was 16.

When she left the school, she began teaching in New Jersey.  Later she taught in Pennsylvania, Delaware and New York City.  Shadd settled in Windsor, Canada, in 1850, where she taught at an integrated school.  It was there that she wrote the pamphlet “Notes of Canada West” in which she urged black Americans to emigrate north as she had.  In 1853 she began publishing a weekly newspaper , “ The Provincial Freeman”, at a time when there was a growing community of expatriate African Americans in Windsor.  The newspaper provided a forum for Shadd’s views on integrated schools and equal rights for both black men and women, and celebrated the accomplishments of black women in particular.

She married Thomas Cary, an owner of barbershops in Toronto, in 1856.  He commuted between Toronto and Chatham, where she was publishing the newspaper.  They weathered a number of struggles during their short marriage.  Short because Thomas Cary died in November, 1860, while Shadd Cary was expecting their second child.  She became a single mother of two young children with financial struggles.  She had already been forced to stop printing the newspaper in 1859 because she could not financially keep it going. Her problems continued until her friend Martin Delaney offered her a job recruiting black men to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War, a first for a black woman.

After the war ended Shadd Cary moved to Washington, D.C., where she returned to teaching in the public schools.  It was there she embarked on her second career.  In September, 1869, she became the first black woman law student at Howard University.  As the first African American woman to get a law degree she joined the ranks of the growing women’s voting rights movement alongside Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.  She was a member of the National Woman Suffrage Association and stayed close to the organization even though its leaders adopted the stance that “educated white women were better suited to vote than illiterate black males”.  It was not uncommon for black women to stay associated with organizations that were hostile to African American interests because it enabled them to raise issues that would otherwise be ignored.  It was during this period that she founded the Colored Women’s Progressive Franchise Association but it did not last long.

Until her death in Washington, D.C., in June, 1893, Shadd Cary continued to use her law degree to help people all around her with legal issues while never wavering from her convictions on equal rights and particularly women’s rights.  Frederick Douglas once wrote of her, “We do not know of her equal among the colored ladies of the United States.”  Her accomplishments were indeed impressive.

2020 will soon be coming to an end.  It also means the end of the Centennial Celebration of the ratification of the 19^th Amendment giving women the right to vote.  Unfortunately that last sentence is questionable at best.  Given the ugly headlines we have dealt with every day about the tragedies of this year, there was little to make us think about the significance of the centennial, much less celebrate.  Additionally, saying the ratification gave women the vote, leaves out the fact that all women did not gain the right to vote.  It was not until 1965 that Black women were finally granted the right to vote.

It was not as if Black women did not participate in the fight for the right to vote.  Scores of them worked  shoulder to shoulder with white women but then were forgotten when the battle had been won.  White women were not prepared to treat their Black sisters as equals.  Coralie Franklin Cook, who considered Susan B. Anthony her idol, said of Anthony, “thousands of torches lighted by her hand will yet blaze the way to freedom for women.”  By 1921, however, Cook retired from the movement because, while she considered herself “born a suffragist”, she said the movement had “turned its back on women of color”.

We will do our best as this “centennial” year comes to a close to educate and entertain you while honoring a number of the Black suffragists.  Earlier we posted an article on the life of Mary Church Terrell.  You might begin your education on Black suffragists by reading that HerStory post.

Standing before the Supreme Court, Eliza “Lyda” Burton Conley argued to protect her ancestral burial ground. Considered the Guardian of Heron Indian Cemetery, her appearance made her the third woman, and the first Native American, to argue a case in front of the Supreme Court. For her, this case was personal. 

Eliza Burton Conley was born sometime between 1868 and 1869 to Eliza Burton Zane Conley, a member of the Wyandotte tribe and descendant of a chief, and Andrew Conley, an English farmer in Kansas. Conley was one of four sisters. The Wyandotte were sometimes controversially called “Huron,” hence the name of the cemetery. A very active and independent young woman, she and one of her sisters would row across the river every day to attend school at Park College. During her lifetime, she became a lawyer, was admitted to the Missouri Bar, trained as a telegraphic operator, taught at Spalding Business College in Kansas City, and taught Sunday School at her Methodist Episcopal Church. She did all of this before women had the right to vote in the United States. 

Conley is most well known for her attempts to protect the Huron Indian Cemetery located in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. As Kansas City developed, the cemetery’s land became prime real estate. Conley— whose mother, sister, and hundreds of her Wyandotte tribesmen were buried in the cemetery—paid close attention to discussions around the land. Realizing the potential threats against the land, Conley entered the Kansas City School of Law in preparation to fight for its protection. She graduated as one of the only women in her class and was admitted to the Missouri Bar in 1902.  She was reportedly also admitted to the Kansas Bar in 1910. 

In 1906, Congress approved legislation to sell the land and move the bodies buried there. As a lawyer, Conley filed a permanent injunction against the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and Indian Commissioners in U.S. District Court to prevent the sale. As a private citizen, Conley and one of her sisters, Helena, built a shack, known as “Fort Conley,” at the entrance to the cemetery, padlocked the gate, and hung a sign that warned against trespassers. As her lawsuit went through the courts, Conley and her sister guarded their family and ancestors’ graves day in and day out with a shotgun.   

In a 1906 interview, Conley said, “I will go to Washington and personally defend” the cemetery. She continued, “no lawyer could plead for the grave of my mother as I could, no lawyer could have the heart interest in the case that I have." When asked by the interviewer if she could win, Conley smiled and responded, “If I lose, then I will admit that the constitution of the United States is as Greek to me." 

When Conley appeared before the Supreme Court on January 14, 1910, she formally represented herself as the named plaintiff. She argued that the 1855 federal treaty with the Wyandotte prevented the U.S. from selling the land and that the descendants of those who signed the treaty had the right to enforce it. Despite her arguments, the Supreme Court argued the government had the right to sell the land. Conley and her sister were not discouraged, and continued guarding the cemetery.  

While she lost in court, she won the longer battle to protect the cemetery. Her actions got the notice of Kansas state senator Charles Curtis. In 1913, Curtis wrote and passed a law protecting the cemetery from future development. Yet the threat of development was still there and Conley kept up the fight. She tried to get an injunction against the city in 1918, was arrested several times for interfering with city officials who she felt were disrespecting the graves, and in the 1930s spent 10 days in jail on a trespass charge for protecting the cemetery. In her later life, Conley and her sister continued to spend most of their time around the cemetery, near the graves of their sister and mother. 

Conley was murdered during a robbery in 1946. She is buried in the Huron Indian Cemetery next to her sister, Helena, and 400-600 other bodies. Many of the graves remain unmarked. Others, inspired by her determination to save the cemetery, kept up the fight. In 1971, the Huron Indian Cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2017, the cemetery was designated a National Historic Landmark, officially preventing any development from happening on the site.  

By: Emma Rothberg, NWHM Predoctoral Fellow in Gender Studies I 2020-2022

National Women's History Museum

This was me on my way home from an audition for King Kong where I was told I was too ugly for the part. This was a pivotol moment for me. This one rogue opinion could have derailed my dreams of becoming an actress or force me to pull myself up by the bootstraps and believe in myself. I took a deep breath and said, "I'm you think I'm too ugly for your film but you are just one opinion in a sea of thousands and I'm off to a kinder tide."

Today I have 18 Academy awards.