The first African American poetry book was published in London, not America.

Evidence

A publishing house in London releases Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, by Phillis Wheatley, a twenty-year-old enslaved woman in Boston, making her the first African American to publish a book of poetry. Wheatley was captured in West Africa when she was seven years old. Her first name was derived from the ship that took her across the Atlantic Ocean. Her last name belonged to the prominent Boston family who purchased her. After her book is published, Wheatley is freed. The remainder of her life is marked by poverty and illness. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 320

Categorization

• SEED: The fact that the first African American book had to be published in London, not in America, is a concrete anchor for an essay on how the American origin story constrains Black expression.