BOSTON (AURN News) — According to USPS, the U.S. Postal Service will honor Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American poet, with the 49th stamp in its Black Heritage series.
The stamp commemorates Wheatley’s groundbreaking literary legacy as the first author of African descent in the American Colonies to publish a book.
A free, public first-day-of-issue ceremony will take place Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, at 11 a.m. EST at the Old South Meeting House in Boston.
Born in West Africa and enslaved in Boston, Wheatley was educated in the Wheatley household and published Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in 1773, earning international acclaim and correspondence with George Washington.
Freed that same year, she became a lasting symbol of Black intellectual achievement. The stamp will be issued as a Forever stamp.
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