Frances E.W. Harper and James Whitfield are two of the most influential anti-slavery poets of all time. Both individuals use poetry as a form of resistance and as a way to express themselves during a time of great racial tension. Their poems reach out to many different audiences, shedding light on racial injustices that were present in America. Harper’s and Whitfield’s poetry, like many other works that were written during this time, help us to better comprehend the effects of slavery on African Americans.
Although Frances E.W. Harper (1825-1911) lived in the enslaved state of Maryland, she was a free individual as a result of her parents’ social status. Harpers’ freedom allowed her to embark upon many opportunities that other blacks were not afforded. During her youth Harper’s parents passed away and she began to live with her aunt and uncle. While living with her aunt and uncle, Harper was acquainted with a new way of life that taught her about abolitionism and how to be a well rounded individual. After learning more about social injustices and seeing the ways in which they affected black people, Harper began to use writing as a positive outlet. She eventually became a teacher of poetry and taught vocational skills that were important during this time. However, teaching was not Harper’s passion and she felt that she needed to do something to improve the lives of the people of her race. Harper gave lectures about moving forward and demolishing social injustices. She gradually became one of the greatest black reformers, feminists, and civil rights activists in the nation. In the midst of fighting for civil rights Harper still continued to write poetry. She published one of her most famous works “The Slave Mother” during this t...
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...e enslaved and oppressed.
Works Cited
Gates, Henry L., Jr., and Nellie Y. Mckay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African
American Literature. Second ed. New York: Norton, 2004. Print.
Gray, Janet Sinclair. Race and Time: American Women's Poetics from Antislavery to
Racial Modernity. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2004. Print.
Stancliff, Michael. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: African American Reform Rhetoric and the Rise of a Modern Nation State. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print.
Whitfield, James Monroe, Robert S. Levine, and Ivy G. Wilson. The Works of James M.
Whitfield: America and Other Writings by a Nineteenth-century African American
Poet. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2011. Print.
Whitley, Edward Keyes. American Bards: Walt Whitman and Other Unlikely Candidates for National Poet. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.
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