A Voice They Could Not Silence

In the autumn of 1772, eighteen of Boston's most prominent men — including Governor Thomas Hutchinson and John Hancock — gathered to examine a young enslaved woman named Phillis Wheatley. Their task was extraordinary: determine whether she had truly written the elegant poems attributed to her. The men questioned her on literature, theology, and classical learning. One by one, they signed an attestation confirming what should never have required proof — that Phillis Wheatley possessed genuine intellectual and creative gifts.

The following year, in 1773, her collection Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London by Archibald Bell, making her the first African American woman to publish a book of poetry. She was roughly nineteen years old. Kidnapped from West Africa at about seven, sold on a Boston wharf to John and Susanna Wheatley, she had learned English, Latin, and Greek within a few years of her arrival. The poems she wrote brimmed with theological depth and classical skill that astonished readers on both sides of the Atlantic.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:7, "Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." The Spirit does not consult human hierarchies before distributing gifts. No auction block, no social caste, no committee of powerful men gets to decide whether God has planted something holy in a person. Wheatley's gift was evident long before that panel convened. Their attestation did not create her dignity — it simply could no longer deny it.

The same is true in every congregation. The Spirit's gifts are already present. Our only task is to stop obstructing them.