DID YOU KNOW THAT?

February 22, 1911 - Francis Ellen Watkins Harper, abolitionist and poet, died. Harper was born September 24, 1825 in Baltimore, Maryland. She had her first volume of poems, “Forest Leaves,” published in 1845 and her second book, “Poems on M...iscellaneous Subjects,” published in 1854. Other works by Harper include “Poems” (1857), “The Martyr of Alabama and Other Poems” (1892), and “Atlanta Offering” (1895). In 1853, Harper joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and became a traveling lecturer for the group. She was also a strong supporter of prohibition and women’s suffrage. In 1892, Harper published “Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted,” one of the first novels by an African American woman. In 1897, she was elected vice president of the National Association of Colored Women. Studies of Harper include Melba Joyce Boyd’s “Discarded Legacy: Politics and Poetics in the Life of Francis E. W. Harper” (1994).