What Eighteen Judges Could Not Deny

In October 1772, a young enslaved woman named Phillis Wheatley stood before a panel of eighteen of Boston's most prominent men — including Governor Thomas Hutchinson, John Hancock, and the Reverend Samuel Mather. Their purpose was extraordinary: to determine whether an African woman could truly have written the refined poems attributed to her. They questioned her on literature, theology, and the classics. When they finished, every man signed an attestation confirming she was indeed the author. The following September, her book Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in London by Archibald Bell — the first volume of poetry published by an African American. No Boston printer had been willing to take it on.

The men on that panel lived in a society that denied the full humanity of enslaved people. Yet when confronted with an undeniable gift, they could not look away. Wheatley's poetry — much of it praising the mercy and sovereignty of God — flowed from a mind and soul that no system of bondage could diminish.

Paul writes in Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The Almighty does not distribute His gifts according to human categories. He pours out talent, insight, and calling without regard to the walls we construct. The same Spirit who inspired the apostles kindled a poet's fire in a young woman the world considered property.

When we limit who we expect God to use, we reveal our own blindness — not His boundaries.