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Interview with Sue Bailey Thurman on "Presenting Albert
Schweitzer" with host Miriam Rogers, Side B (394-337_B)
Pitts Theology Library
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Miriam Rogers: Uh Mrs. Thurman, do you think that he [Mahatma Gandhi], he would feel it
[struggle for African-American equality] has progressed fast enough or is good enough?
SBT: Well, I think he would uh be very happy about the way it is being done. He would-would
council um a fidelity to the dream, even by those people who-who work under cover of night,
and there are many in the South who are a little afraid to have their sincere interest and concern
for the working out of uh of these uh tensions brought to light of day. But Gandhi felt that the
only way that people can be constrained to deeper expressions of humanity, that they share with
each other in this great trial of bringing man to a um higher ground in their relationship, each to
the other. That is the only way. I think he would say that we pay a-a terrible price, uh we pay a
very great price, but then we learn, we grow, through suffering and we develop and we become
very great as a nation and uh as a group of people forming a one world uh compact, one world
citizenship in doing so.
MR: [Clears throat] We can’t bring this hour to a close Mrs. Thurman, without bringing into
focus this lovely little book, which you gave me about a year ago. It is called “Meditations for
Women,” with an introduction by Dorothy Canfield Fischer and edited by Jean Abernathy.
Twelve different authors have chapters about each month in the year, yours being April. [Clears
throat] I was impressed by the beauty of your prose and the selections of poetry and reference. I
wish you would please tell us something about this elegant and helpful little volume, and how it
came into being. I notice that you have quoted Tagore, and I hope we’ll have time for you to read
a little from it and a little of Tagore’s poetry, which I love uh so very deeply. There, the authors,
there are twelve different authors as I said and they come from a great variety of sources. Edith
Lovejoy Pierce on January, for instance; Josephine W. Johnson, August; Banaro W. Overstreet
October, and I-I wonder if you could tell us whose idea the book was and what purpose you
think it uh was collected for and um how much time you spent on it because as I say, it is rather a
profound [pauses] April which you have for us, a different little page, a different page for every
day in the month.
SBT: Well, it was considered necessary to bring out a book of this sort that might be read by
women, um particularly those who would like something of refreshment of spiritual and-and
intellectual refreshment for each day. And the women were supposed to write from various
backgrounds, several approaches that we make to-to this sort of meditation uh to the um reading
of uh the things that um inspire and in-induce us to-to deeper thought and to um the greater
dreams to which we aspire. I took April because I had the temerity to want to write something
about three people who were born in the spring. I selected Juliette Derricotte, um who was the
Dean of Women of Fisk University and before that uh um a Y, a national YWCA secretary who
traveled greatly uh in the um fulfillment of uh in-in the service of this dream I shall say. It was
Juliette Derricotte who-who was killed in an automobile accident that rocked this country, some
years ago. Uh returning home from around the world um where she had spoken to thousands of
student groups in behalf of uh the friendship that American students would like to offer around
the world, she met with an automobile accident and died because she couldn’t get service-
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medical service- that was needed. She was not accepted in this little hospital in Dalton, Georgia.
I wanted to write about her as a wonderful child of April.
MR: What is a veena, Mrs. Thurman?
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And then it happens that Thomas Jefferson was born in April, and how I put the two together of
course is um a thing of- took some daring. And Tagore, that you speak about, um is in this
chapter because he uh is the poet of spring. He was born in May, but there was something about
Tagore that made him the spring’s poet for all people, and he is the- these are the three that could
inspire and enliven any April or May or any spring, and I brought Tagore and Juliette Derricotte
and Thomas Jefferson together. Uh back to Tagore, we spent some time on his campus and there
I learned to play, or tried to learn to play, the instrument which is called the veena. I brought the
instrument home, um soon it became a thing of beauty- beauty of sight [MR laughs], but a silent
beauty, not a beauty of sound.
SBT: Well, it is supposed to be the second oldest instrument known to man. It is the daughter of
the oldest instrument. It is a string, it is made of string uh, it is a string instrument that is played
sitting down, stretches across the knees. It’s a very elegant thing to look at and to hear it is to be
taken back um into many centuries of the past and to be brought forward into the future that is
far far away in the distance.
MR: Um [clears throat], would you tell us a little bit about the name of the school, which Tagore
founded and a little bit about the campus there in India? It had always seemed so intriguing to me
that you have gone to this school and several of-other of our friends have attended it also.
SBT: Well, the name is um Shantiniketan, which means abode of peace. It’s a beautiful campus
with um spreading banyan trees and out of doors one will find uh the broad vistas and you
wander around an-an aura of beauty. Uh the school has captured the arts of India and brought
them back to the Indian people. Uh this after they had been forgotten and laid aside in favor of
the English language and English poetry and English music. It is now I think a uh a school
operated by the government and uh it has taken the place of those missionaries or ambassadors of
Indian culture who have traveled around from place to place, from community to community, all
through India from north to south, east to west, teaching their people to love their own arts and
culture. The school is doing this. Um the Chakravarties live there when they are not in residence
at Boston University.
MR: Oh, yes; that’s where they met I believe. Did Mr. Tagore read his own poetry while you
were there?
SBT: Yes, he did. He read to us one night. Um, we-he gave us a long reading of poetry.
MR: Well, Mrs. Thurman, in your little um book, you have two poems of Tagore’s and I believe
we have time for you to read both of them. Would you start with the one I think Tagore’s
“Maiden” and then close with “Where the Mind is Without fear?”
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SBT: Well he writes in “Gitanjali,” uh about the Indian maiden who takes her lamp down to the
river:
“Maiden where do you go shadowing your lamp with your mantle? My house is all dark and
lonesome. Lend me your light.
I have come to the river, to float my lamp on the stream when the daylight wanes in the west.
I have come to dedicate my lamp to the sky.
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In the silence of gathering night I asked her, Maiden your lights are all lit, then where do you go
with your lamp?
In the moonless gloom of midnight I asked, Maiden, what is your quest holding the lamp near
your heart?
I have brought my lamp to join the carnival of lamps.”
And then the other one uh that you want, I think, is
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.”
And I think he would say all countries awake.
MR: That’s a most appropriate close to a very fascinating and unusual hour. I want to thank you,
Mrs. Thurman, for being a guest on this program. Thank you in the name of Albert Schweitzer,
and the friends of Albert Schweitzer. For me, it has been a great pleasure to be joined with you
and listening to you and hearing the things that we wouldn’t have heard otherwise, and I feel sure
that our listening audience will say the same. Thank you again, Mrs. Howard Thurman.
Norbert Ellerin: You have been listening to another program in the series entitled “Presenting
Albert Schweitzer.” This program is conducted by Mrs. Miriam Rogers of Brookline. Mrs.
Roger’s guest this afternoon has been Mrs. Howard Thurman. Your announcer has been Norbert
Ellerin. This afternoon’s program came to you by tape recording. This is Boston University
Radio.
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Sue Bailey Thurman Recordings
Description
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This collection contains a two-part interview between Miriam Rogers and Sue Bailey Thurman. In this interview, Thurman explores the lives of Phyllis Wheatley and Amos Fortune, two black people brought to Boston on slave ships, presenting their lives of thought and action as exemplary of democracy and freedom in America. Thurman also talks briefly about the life of Harriet Tubman, and other current events, including: the growing influence of Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, and readings from a book of "Meditations for Women," to which Thurman contributed. All in all, this interview offers a small window into the work and thinking of Sue Bailey Thurman.
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Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III.
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1950s
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WBUR, Boston, Massachusetts
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Interview with Sue Bailey Thurman on "Presenting Albert Schweitzer" with host Miriam Rogers, Side B
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Miriam Rogers
Sue Bailey Thurman
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1959-03-10
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394-337_B
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This is Part 2 to "Presenting Albert Schweitzer," a radio program aired on WBUR Boston University Radio, hosted by Miriam Rogers. This episode was an interview with Sue Bailey Thurman. The introduction to the episode is provided by Norbert Ellerin.
In this second half, Miriam Rogers and Sue Bailey Thurman closes out the interview. Rogers asks Thurman about Gandhi and his perspective on social progress. Rogers also tasks Thurman about a book in which she is included, entitled "Meditations for Women." Finally, Thurman ends the interview by reading two poems from Rabindranath Tagore which were included in the book.
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Transcription by Kayleigh M. Whitman.
Description by Rodell Jefferson III.
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Interview with Sue Bailey Thurman on "Presenting Albert
Schweitzer" with host Miriam Rogers, Side A (394-337_A)
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Norbert Ellerin: Welcome to another program in the series entitled: “Presenting Albert
Schweitzer.” This program is conducted by Mrs. Miriam Rogers of Brookline; and now, here is
Mrs. Rogers.
Miriam Rogers: Thank you Mr. Ellerin. Our guest this afternoon is Mrs. Howard Thurman. It is
needless to say that Mrs. Thurman would be expected to shine by the reflecting glory of her
husband, Dr. Howard Thurman, Dean of Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. But Mrs. Thurman
shines in her very own right also, in many different ways. We are delighted to have Mrs.
Thurman with us today and have been looking forward to this pleasure for a long time.
Mrs. Thurman has chosen a unique and oblique angle to tie in what she has in mind with a
program dedicated to Dr. Albert Schweitzer. But before we can properly start the program, I
must give you some background and bibliography of our guest, so you will understand how well
prepared is her education and activity for this subject.
Sue Bailey Thur-Thurman born in Arkansas, received two degrees from Oberlin College before
her marriage to Dr. Howard Thurman. Before coming to Boston, she was extremely busy in San
Francisco initiating and developing the Intercultural Workshop of the distinguished Fellowship
Church in that city. She was busy also [pause] with the YWCA. She founded and edited the
Aframerican Women’s Journal and traveled and lectured extensively in India, to mention just a
few things. Here in Boston, Mrs. Thurman continues her interest in the YWCA as chairman of
the [coughing in background] World Fellowship Committee. At Boston University, Mrs.
Thurman is chairman of the Hostess Committee for the international students, which incudes
much entertaining of these students at the home of Dean and Mrs. Howard Thurman. Their
residence is always unlocked and ready to welcome the students and their friends. [pause] Mrs.
Thurman is also a member of the board of the International Student Center in Cambridge. She is
Chairman of the International Student Program for the United Church Women of Boston. These
are just a few of the activities which show the broad scope and interest, which our distinguished
guest, and of the feminine gender for a change, will bring to you on our talk with her this
afternoon. Mrs. Thurman it is a pleasure to have you on this program.
Sue Bailey Thurman: Thank you Mrs. Rogers. It is a very great pleasure for me to be on this
program, a program which I consider a-a very important one making a distinctive contribution to
international understanding of all peoples, and particularly of the work that is being done by Dr.
Schweitzer at Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa.
MR: Thank you, Mrs. Thurman. Because Dr. Schweitzer’s hospital is in Africa, we have had
many programs on African themes and interests. It is especially appropriate therefore, today, that
Mrs. Thurman has chosen to speak in part about two very fine people who came to these shores
as slaves. Mrs. Thurman I am happy to turn the microphone over to you.
[pause]
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SBT: Thank you Mrs. Rogers. It seems to me, um always um, to-to be an inspiring moment
when we can think about two such people, especially when we are considering countries being
new born today; and particularly the one that has just achieved its freedom, independence, and
privilege: Ghana formerly the Gold Coast of Africa. During the past week we have had occasion
to recall the beginnings of our own country, the United States, and remember with new
appreciation the several contributions that have been offered to this land from a variety of
sources, contributions that have come to be a part of our own developing life and thought. The
opening lines of our national drama, we should always remember, the opening lines of our
superb dream of democracy in America, were recited by many people. And we are very proud
that in America they represent people who come from many nationality, racial, and creedal
cultules [sp probably cultures]. Among the many are some whose contributions are not well
known, because they were made many years ago perhaps, made quietly inobstrusively [sic] in
remote sections, even before we thought of them as being a part of American life and thought
and action. The two that we will be considering vitally today lived in our own eighteenth-century
Boston; and they are Phillis Wheatley and Amos Fortune. Both of them came to Boston in slave
ships; they won their own freedom here and remained to become citizens of this country,
members of their community who spoke significantly in their respective ways to all America in
their century, as they speak to us in our century. And whose contributions may be said to have
given vast illumination to their time, in the-in the community of the world in which they lived
and had their being.
Who was Phillis Wheatley, and what are the fascinating facts about her that are stranger than any
fiction? Phillis Wheatley was a little African girl who at aged eight or nine was taken from her
native land and [sic] which according to some historians was located near Senegal. She was
brought to this country over the dreadful Middle Passage across the seas, arriving in Boston to be
sold at the slave market here. [nine-second pause with rustling papers] It is difficult for us to
think of a slave market in Boston, but um such was the case and-and for Phillis Wheatley, she
was fortunate to be met at the steamer and to be purchased by a Mrs. John Wheatley. Uh Mrs.
Wheatley seems to have been a very remarkable Boston woman who wanted Phillis Wheatley for
a personal servant, but more than that as a companion. Uh Mrs. uh Wheatley thus had uh some
idea of Phyllis Wheatley’s innate abilities when she glimpsed her um coming off the boat. Soon
Phyllis, who had latent talents of a remarkable variety, had become a member of one of the most
cultured literary families in Boston. In a short year and a half she had mastered the English
language completely, and could read the most difficult portions of Holy Writ. She would be
about aged eleven at this time. And by age of fourteen she was able to translate Ovid and she was
studying Pope’s Homer. She had become an ardent uh student of Pope and his poetry; and along
with this she was delving into astronomy, ancient and modern geography, and history, which
speaks very well for this little girl in the year 1758 or 9. About this time she had definitely
established herself as a little poet in the finest circles of Boston. The earliest attempts which have
been preserved to us being her uh acknowledgement of loyalty in a poem, which was felt, by
many of the Colony at that time, a poem addressed to George III because he had repealed the
Stamp Act. Of course this was some years before the revolutionary struggle had begun. This
poetry of hers was eighteenth-century poetry and therefore it carried the patterns of the day. It
was repressed and formal, but it represented the mind of a very young girl that recently come to
these shores. That’s an interesting thing about her and about the other young people of her day,
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that they responded readily to what was going on in the social and civic life; and that she would
have the temerity to write a letter to George III in England is remarkable indeed.
Sewell is dead. Swift–pinioned fame thus cried. Sewell is dead.
Is Sewell dead, my trembling tongue replied,
Oh what a blessing in his flight denied
How oft for us the holy prophet prayed.
How oft to us the Word of Life conveyed.
By duty urged my mournful verse to close,
I for his tomb this epitaph compose.
MR: That’s lovely. Mrs. Thurman, how old would you think she was at this time?
Pitts Theology Library
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So it was, that the freedom in which she lived and moved and had her being, in the family of the
Wheatleys made it possible for her to extend her kind and thoughtful spirit in many directions. In
1769 she became a member of the Old South Meeting House, pastored at that time by Dr.
Sewell. It was upon the late uh latters death, a year after Phillis Wheatley had joined this church,
that she wrote the poem for his tombstone, which is again astounding for a little servant girl in
the fellowship of Old South Meeting House. This is a bit of the poem:
SBT: I think perhaps uh fifteen, [MR can be heard in agreeing in background] fourteen or fifteen.
MR: Yes.
SBT: She wrote um epitaphs for other friends at this age, um prominent people who were in this
Wheatley circle. They were formal and serious, but they were written in appreciation of people,
who could create a Phillis Wheatley in this new free land. I think that should be said here in
commendation of the society in which she moved at the time.
MR: [beginning while SBT is finishing sentence] That they could appreciate her, it-its hard to
believe when you read the, when you say the date, 1769, these people who had slaves could give
one s-so much freedom and could appreciate the quality of her mind and spirit.
SBT: Well the insight perhaps of early New Englanders, and they and only they I would think
could-could create and-and br-bring to life here, um the Phillis Wheatley whom we have come to
honor uh on this occasion. She was very fortunate coming to Boston, I think, instead of to
Charleston or Atlanta. She addressed herself to the important events of her day always preparing
unconsciously for more remarkable opportunities, which were to come to her later.
In 1773 she was given a trip to England by this gracious mistress Mrs. Wheatley, who was now
her patron. In England, she was presented by the Countess Huntington to the drawing rooms of
London, and here again it is well to note the year, 1773. The little African girl who had become
the little American girl, the Bostonian Phillis Wheatley, is taken back across the Atlantic and-and
uh back across a very different-different passage it must have been this time, to be presented in
the drawing rooms of London. It was early in the next year upon her return to Boston that her
collection, while imposing one it was for that time [sic], was published and called “Poems of
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Various Subjects, Religious and Moral” by [MR clears throat] Phillis Wheatley. In the Boston
Gazette for January 24th, 1774 appeared an advertisement: “This day published, adorned with
elegant engraving of the author, poems by Phillis Wheatley sold by Cox and Perry at their store
on Kings Street.”
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MR: Very sweet; very old-fashioned and formal, yes?
SBT: Before coming back to America- and incidentally she did rush home suddenly because
Mrs. Wheatley, gravely ill, wanted to see her before she passed on- Phillis was presented a gift
from the Lord Mirror of London: a leather-bound copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, uh which was
a very high tribute to her as she returned to literary, a literary future of very great promise in her
own land. Because her moment of highest honor was yet to come. In 1775, du-during the Siege
of Boston, George Washington had his Revolutionary army headquarters stationed in
Cambridge, Phillis wrote a letter to the distinguished soldier enclosing a poem of high tribute and
was thus the first to refer to him as first in peace. Her poem was printed in the American monthly
museum periodical at the time and the words “first in peace” appear in the opening lines. The
poem begins:
Thee, first in peace and honor
We demand the grace and glory of thy martial hand.
Famed for thy valor, for thy virtues more,
Hear every tongue thy guardian and implore
[Brief Pause]
MR: This is very lovely. Uh I read it before-fore we went on the air and I also read uh George
Washington’s reply to this poem, which I think is lovely. Could you read that for us please, Mrs.
Thurman?
SBT: It’s a much longer poem, but um I-I have just read the first four lines where she speaks of
him as first in peace and honor. Um this poem, and the uh accompanying letter, uh George
Washington re-received and uh sent a reply on the date of February the 2nd, 1776 and he begins
his letter, “Miss Phillis, your favor of the 26th of October did not reach my hand til the middle of
December. Time enough, you say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted, but a variety of
important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and to withdraw the attention,
I hope, will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real, neglect. I
thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed; and
however un-undeserving I may be of such encomium, the style and manner exhibit a striking
proof of your poetical talents. In honor of which, and as a tribute justly due you, I would have
published the poem, had I not been apprehensive that while I only meant to give the world this
new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of vanity. This and nothing
else determined me not to give it place in the public prints. If you should ever come to
Cambridge, or near headquarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favored by the Muses, and
to whom nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations.” It is signed “I am with
great respect, your obedient humbled servant, George Washington”
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MR: Very impressive and he wrote beautiful prose himself, didn’t-don’t you think so Mrs.
Thurman or do you suppose a secretary wrote that? I don’t think so, no.
MR: Were you going to read the names of these people?
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SBT: [Starting at the end of MR’s sentence] Well. I-I think he wrote it himself. Its very much
like-like [MR laughing in background] the letters that uh we find that he has addressed to other
people. That he took time uh-uh during those-those crowded hours to [MR says “imagine” in
background and clears throat] respond to Phillis Wheatley is an amazing insight into the
character of George Washington. [Pause] It is um, a rather formal and stilted uh prose, however,
but it is the eighteenth century, which we must remember even when we think of Phillis
Wheatley and all of the poems that she wrote at that time, against the background of the
eighteenth century and the style and pattern of that day. Sometime after this, Phillis accepted the
invitation that had been extended her by George Washington to visit his headquarters in
Cambridge, and she was received with great courtesy by General Washington and his officers. It
was to be expected I suppose, that um many skeptics of that day would doubt if the young
Boston Negro girl were really the author of many of her poems and communications. Of the
many that were signed by her, and uh th-there were those who considered uh, they may have
been written by someone else because it was very difficult for them to accept her genius.
Because of this, her collection of poems had to carry m-after a time the following voucher, which
is very interesting indeed.
SBT: Yes. “We whose names,” uh this is the voucher “We whose names are underwritten do
assure the world, that the poems specified in the following page, as we verily believe were
written by Phyllis, a young Negro girl. She has been examined by some of the best judges and
thought qualified to write them.” The signatures here are, they begin with, His Excellency
Governor Thomas Hutchinson; Honorable Harrison Gray; Honorable James Pitts; Honorable
John Hancock; Reverend Samuel Cooper; Reverend Samuel Mather.
MR: Well, very fine names indeed in American history.
SBT: After this she was to write a poem to [clears throat] the men of Harvard, which said in
closing “improve your privileges while ye stay, ye pupils, and each hour redeems that hears a
good or bad report of you to Heaven. Let sin that baneful evil to the soul by you be shunned nor
once remit your guard. Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg. Ye bleeming[sp]-blooming plants
of human race divine, an Ethiop tells you ‘tis your greatest foe its transient sweetness turns to
endless pain and in immense perdition sinks the soul.”
I don’t know how many Harvard men saw that poem [MR laughs] or knew that it had been
written to them. Incidentally, Phillis Wheatley was a very pious girl and she would dare to take a
subject like this and address such a poem to men of Harvard. I suppose she heard a lot about
them and the other students around New England at the time. If she were living today, she would
write the poem many times over again perhaps.
MR: I think it would be very useful indeed.
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SBT: I think it would, even for our students today. This edition of her poetry is located on
Harvard’s campus in the library there, one of the few places where it can be found. There may be
another copy at Vassar College, but it’s very hard to find them anywhere. They have become
collector’s items of course. Many people are looking around in old bookstores to find this first
edition of Phillis Wheatley’s poems.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
Now, it is a sadder story to tell of her closing days. The story of Phillis Wheatly is the story of a
sensitive woman who could not make the journey all the way through life with se-sensitive
friends surrounding her. The Wheatleys had passed on and aft-after the Revolutionary War,
conditions were serious in and around Boston. It was not easy to find work to do; food and
rations were scarce. It was a Boston that would follow any war, and particularly this one. With
the death of the Wheatleys, uh Phillis was without support and of course she could not earn her
board and keep by writing poems, and at this time she considered it would be um the proper
thing to be married. So in the year 1778, she married a man, a ne’er-do-well who made many
promises it seems. He was impressive to look at; he carried along pretensions of being qualified
for many things. He was a baker, storekeeper, lawyer, doctor, and Phillis was unfortunate in herin her selection of this man, but it is one of the things which go to make this interesting and
eventful life of hers. The marriage was not successful. In broken health, she spent her last days in
a part of the city, um where she was trying to carry on some work in an atmosphere of a boarding
house. Here she took in people to room and board, but um her health was broken very soon from
having lost two children and dying the day the third was born. She comes to the end of her days
here, destitute, deserted by a man who sold her treasured gifts of books and valuables in payment
of his debts. Mr. Peters was his name, um he it was who sold the copy of Paradise Lost which
the Lord Mirror of London had given her, and so we won’t find that copy again as Mr. Peters has
done away with that.
MR: Well, um, seems that such a delicate person of mind and spirit would not be realistic
enough or strong enough to cope with a Mr. Peters- seems to happen that way, don’t you think
so?
SBT: I’m afraid it does. A few days after her death in 177-84, there appeared this notice in the
Boston Independent Chronicle: “Last Lord’s day died Mrs. Phillis Peters, formerly Phillis
Wheatley age 31, known to the literary world by her celebrated miscellaneous poems. Her
funeral is to be this afternoon at four o’clock from the house lately improved by Mr. Todd nearly
opposite Dr. Bullfinch’s at West Boston, where her friends and acquaintances are desired to
attend.” The house thus referred to was situated on or near the present site of the Revere House
in Bolton Square, formerly known as a portion of Cambridge Street and sometimes as the
Western-Westerly end of Court Street.
[pause]
It is uh interesting to me, Mrs. Rogers, that the um two hundredth anniversary of uh Phillis
Wheatley, Phillis Wheatley’s coming to the United States would have gone unnoticed if the city
of Cleveland, having a Phillis Wheatley House, had not called the nation’s attention to Phillis
Wheatley and the fact that she was the very first Negro woman to a-achieve distinction in
America. We do know that she is honored in many ways by having many branches and uh
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YWCA centers named for her in this country. But she should be remembered, and here in
Boston, for having made a distinctive contribution to our life and to our growing attitude of
friendliness and understanding, and to a feeling of all-inclusiveness that was germane to New
England life during the days of her brief time in the city.
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MR: Mrs. Thurman, I’m very grateful to you for exposing us to this lovely lady and I’m certain
that not very many people, like myself, knew much about her until you brought her to our
attention. Thank you very much indeed and I hope in the future we can find out a little more
about her than our time allows this afternoon. I know you have uh another person that you are
very anxious to tell us something about and I believe you said his name was Amos Fortune.
SBT: Yes, Amos Fortune, um comes next, and uh before going on to him, I would like to tell you
that it was a reading of that fascinating book [stutters] Amos Fortune, Free Man written by
Elizabeth Yates, who in private life is Mrs. William McGreal of Peterborough, New Hampshire.
I was particularly happy in coming to Boston after I read the book, that I might uh get more facts
on him and be near the place where Amos Fortune lived and died. Such was the impression that
the book had made upon me and thousands of others as far away as California. It was due to Mrs.
McGreal, Elizabeth Yates, that so many people knew of Amos Fortune. She literally brought him
forth from the grave and gave him to us at the time when we need to interpret his life and his
influence so very much.
A-About him, uh much can be said that would present new [sic] fact to many people. He reached
Boston on a little ship, which was called the White Falcon as early as July of 1725, uh fully
twenty-five years before Phillis Wheatley arrived. He too had been brought over on a slave ship
from the Gold Coast, which is now Ghana, when he was about fifteen years of age. He was
bought by good Quakers, um who went down to meet his ship. Many of them at the time
purchased these bondsmen when they were not financially in a position to have servants, to say
nothing of slaves, but they purchased them at the shipside that they uh might uh have an
opportunity to work for their own freedom and become citizens, free citizens, of this
commonwealth. It was a very old and gracious tradition of the Quakers of Boston in the
eighteenth century. Now the Quakers who purchased Amos Fortune were Caleb and Celia
Copeland. They lived very near Boston and it was with them that Amos Fortune had his first
years here, and very good and profitable years indeed were they. He lived with them until 1740,
and during this time he attended the Quaker meetings and each first Sunday uh aft-after which he
attended Mrs. Copeland’s School for Children which she conducted in her own home. Other
Africans who had and come and who were in various houses and forums around New England
considered him a very great friend, for he remembered his native land and could tell the others
heroic stories of his own father who was the chief of a tribe of At-mun-shi. He could recall the
philosophers of the older men and the long talks at night, women children together, the festivals,
the songs of young voices. It was said that Phillis Wheatley could keep only one haunting
memory of her home and people, being so young when she was snatched away to the hole of the
slave ship that brought her here, but that memory was a very interesting one: a memory of her
mother making a gracious gesture, bowing very low and pouring out water in salutation to the
rising sun. It was as though she performed some act of choreography as the sun came up in the
morning.
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Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
[Tape makes a cut – SBT resumes talking in the middle of phrase]… very different um with
Amos Fortune, uh for he remembered many things and he gave the quality of his being to the
dream of New England in 1725 and until 18-1 [1801] —the year of his death. He served this
New England with a magnificent heart. In 1740 he was given over to the Richardsons of
Woburn, sold to them where he learned a trade and became an excellent tanner. He had earned
enough to pay for his freedom, his own freedom, in 1769, and then he became a purchaser of
freedom for other people. There is a sidelight on him here that is remarkable indeed. He paid for
the freedom of one person whom he wanted to marry. By 1769 he himself is an old man, or
getting to be an old man for his time, and this person whom he wanted to marry was fastbecoming an elderly woman, but Amos Fortune wanted her to die free, so he paid for her
freedom and married her. She died in a short year. After that, he paid for the freedom of another
woman who was along in years and who was ill at the time of this act, and she too died very soon
afterward. And the third wife he paid for uh the freedom of, Violet, who lived a very long life
with him, dying a year after his death. This wife lies beside him in the cemetery at East Jaffrey
today. He moved to Jaffrey, built his house in the shadow of the Monadnock mountain in New
Hampshire; “the mountain that stands alone,” he said. He proceeded to become one of East
Jaffrey’s finest citizens. In time one of the doctors of this community indentured his own son,
that the boy might learn the tanner’s trade. Uh, the indentured paper read that the doctor had of
his own free will and accord, bound his son Charles as apprentice to Amos Fortune, tanner, to
learn his art, trade, or mystery after the manner of an apprentice. To serve him from the date
hereof for and during the term until he shall arrive at age twenty-one years. During said time,
said apprentice his master shall faithfully serve his secrets keep his lawful commands gladly
obeyed.
[MR laughs]
SBT: I think this is a marvelous statement of an apprenticeship paper. And what makes Amos
Fortune so [pause- can hear faint music in background] wonderful, viewed in the light of the
highest values of his day, is the evidence of a great public spirit, which consumed him. He can
teach us many of the fine and skillful arts of integration in all ways. He made his will, leaving
one hundred dollars to his church in Jaffrey with which to purchase a silver communion service
for all of its communit-communicants, and he left about two hundred and fifty dollars- uh both of
these considerable sums at that time- the latter sum for the public schools to be used in any way
for the benefit of its students. The school money was deposited with interest and today has
become a sum of several thousand dollars. A forum is named in his honor today and a special
time is set aside to remember him, and to do him honor in the community where he lived and
died. The silver service was sent to a church in the South where it is now felt lost. Well-meaning
people thought that this silver service might inspire some people in the churches of the South to
think and feel as Amos Fortune did. The only thing that really happened was that it went south
and was lost, and now we search for it today as those who seek for the Holy Grail; but we cannot
find it. We know that uh we can find uh the spirit of the silver service only as we make gifts of
the spirit to our community wherever we live, just as he did.
High tribute is due these two. Representing in Phillis Wheatley a woman of thought, a reflection
of intuition, and in Amos Fortune, who lived ninety years of the eighteenth century, a man of
noble action. Their stories should hearten many of us here in America, in all parts of America,
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coming from racial and creedal and national backgrounds, those who have kept the dream of
democracy and freedom in America and who look forward to this dream and those freedoms
becoming the heritage of all of her people.
Pitts Theology Library
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I would like to tell you Mrs. Rogers that I was invited to this high school in East Jaffrey last fall
to speak uh on that special day somewhat as a friend of Amos Fortune. The fact that I came for
this particular purpose and with uh my own background would make me a friend of Amos
Fortune, as the high school students are, and we have uh um to have a man remembered because
of his gift over a hundred fifty years in this little New Hampshire town is something that does
gladden the hearts, and I speak for all the friends of Amos Fortune.
MR: Both of these stories are very inspiring, Mrs. Thurman, and thank you for bringing them to
us this afternoon. You mentioned in our discussion, some time ago, that this month was the
anniversary of the death of Harriet Tubman, another wonderful Negro woman. The other um day
in discussing Harriet Tubman with a friend of mine, he said that he’d figured out that Harriet
Tubman must have walked something like six-sixty thousand miles over this country in her
underground journeys. This is something of course I didn’t know, he said she made about four
hundred trips back and forth, and the distance from the South to Canada being what it is was
really unbelievable. I wonder if you would um have time to tell us a few words about this
wonderful woman, Harriet Tubman, who lived such a long and profitable life?
SBT: Yes, it is fine of you to mention her right here. I have been thinking about her in
connection with Phillis Wheatley. I would like to connect her with Phillis Wheatley. For, uh
Phillis Wheatley was a Negro woman of the eighteenth century and I would consider Harriet
Tubman the outstanding contributor to the nineteenth and indeed to the twentieth centuries
because her life stretches across the nineteenth century, as you’ve said, having been born in 1820
and having died in 1913. [35:11] Now she was not fortunate, as was Phillis Wheatley, to um be
brought to Boston, or perhaps I should say that because of her deeds, her brave deeds, and her
leadership, she was fortunate not to have been born in Africa and brought to Boston. Uh she was
born in Maryland and lived there as a slave until she ran away, which is the history of many of
the very active and progressive ones who had to run away and take things in their own hands and
speed them up. She ran away and established herself in this section in Boston and-and New
Bedford, and she became uh very interested in life here, but often sad and having a feeling of
guilt that she had come away and had the freedom that the others were denied, so she went back
again and again into Maryland, deep into Virginia, pressing into the South, until she had brought
out more than four hundred of her fellow bondsmen. They traveled by night. She carrying a
sawed-off shotgun—uh it being necessary to have at that time—she following the North Star.
[sic] And they would come to this section and on into Canada [whistling can be heard in the
background] uh she to establish uh whom for her bondsmen, her freedmen, which was the
northern terminal of her underground uh railroad. This was established in Auburn, New York.
Because of that, she was called the Moses of her day and she made a contribution as a scout and
spy during the Civil War and actually led a raid in South Carolina. She knew the Abolitionists
here, one and all, particular-particularly uh did she know as a friend Robert Gould Shaw, whose
statue is in the Boston Gardens. Uh this young man was a great inspiration to her, and she was to
him. They were in South Carolina at the same time during the war and uh um in the battle in
which he felled. You are interested in Harriet Tubman I think because you have seen this very
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Emory University
beautiful tapestry quilt, which [talking in the background] was done by a group, executed by a
group in California. [Faint music in background] It has Harriet Tubman’s figure on it and uh
these people whom she will bring across the border from darkness into light, uh freedom and
opportunity, are sketched in in a fascinating fashion. When we think that it-the quilt was made by
a group of men and women, um an interracial group of men and women, who made their
distinctive contributions- the men uh doing research and the women the stitching I think- um it is
uh it attests to-to the appreciation which many Americans feel for her as one if it’s very great
heroes. They were artists and craftsmen, an interracial group as I have said, and as a matter of
fact there were a few Orientals who worked on that quilt I understand.
MR: Well it-it’s very beautiful indeed. It was on display at the chapel several times and you said
that it has been on display in Washington in several of the government buildings. Also, I’ve seen
a lovely mosaic uh of Harriet Tubman that David Holleman did and if I’m not mistaken, it-he
gave it to your husband, Dean Howard Thurman. Is that correct?
SBT: Yes. Yes, uh with um Harriet Tubman leading um a little um boy by the hand as though
[MR clears throat] she is giving him a benediction and following um the path of the North Star
and leading him into its light and fulfillment. David Holleman has another um mosaic of Harriet
Tubman, which many of us here in Boston hope one day may be placed at Harriet Tubman
House, which is a community center about which you know located here- a center which is
rendering very great service to um children in the community where it is located in Roxbury.
MR: Well, I certainly hope so. I’m a great admirer, as you are Mrs. Thurman, of Mr. Holleman’s
work and also his spirit. Now we come to a very exciting event that we can’t let pass without
some mention, although we’re very far away: this is the new African Republic of Ghana. We are
both very thrilled about this event and in this the prospect, the hope of a truly free Africa. [40:01]
The newspapers have stressed that the prime minister of Ghana emphasized his sympathy for the
peaceful theories of Gandhi. I would like to quote uh what one man says here about uh
Nkumah’s [Nkrumah] idea, and I’m reading from the Christian Science Monitor an article by
Edward M. Waken [sp?], and he says, “After months of studying Gandhi’s policy and watching
the effect it had,” quoting Nkumah [Nkrumah] I should have said, “I began to say-to see that
when backed by a strong political organization, it could be the solution to the colonial problem.
In Nehru’s rise to power, I recognized the success of one, who pledged to Socialism, was able to
interpret Gandhi’s philosophy in practical terms.” That’s the end of the quote. I just want to say
on thing [clears throat], talking about historically thoughtful people, uh the Africans really can
assume responsibility if it is given to them. The trouble has been that they haven’t been given
any responsibility in Africa, or very little until now. From my own very brief and superficial
experience, I noticed there that every-any African that had any responsibility toward me, or
towards his job at the time, did a fine one if given the freedom and liberty to do it. This is why
Ghana is so exciting for me. I certainly hope that one day all of Africa will be free. It is hard to
imagine in the light of events today and in the light of what is going on in South Africa is almost
too dreadful to think about. But if Ghana can be free, then, it seems, there is hope for the rest of
Africa.
It occurred to me in mentioning the influence of Nehru and Gandhi, on uh the prime minister of
Ghana, that you, Mrs. Thurman, because of your having traveled extensively in India, because
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you have known the great Gandhi, that perhaps you could say something in the light of your
experience on this subject and in the light of your traveling and lectures in India.
Pitts Theology Library
Emory University
SBT: Well yes, I would like to. I think, however, that uh Amos Fortune must be very happy in
his grave in East Jaffrey knowing that uh Ghana has come into being uh formally um the Gold
Coast from whence he comes, Ghana of today. He was um one of the great uh forerunners of the
potentiality of men of the Gold Coast, and it is because of him, I think, one reason uh would be
uh that the Gold Coast has proved its capacity for all of Africa for leading the way for all of
Africa’s nations. And the men who have come to this country and who lie in our soil, would be
happy to turn their eyes and their hopes toward Ghana. And if indeed, uh Nkrumah is inspired by
Gandhian theories, I would say that Ghana is in very good fortune.
We had very early hours with Gandhi that extended into noon. He wanted uh to meet us, and we
wanted to meet him, because he thought we could answer some questions about American life.
He was particularly interested uh to know about the life of Negroes and other minority racial
groups in America, about our own country and how we are meeting the um fascinating challenge
and privilege of making one people and one country um from a variety of strains [could be
strands?] and sources here. He wanted to know how we worked toward this expression, which
has a remarkable practical-it is having a remarkable practical demonstration right before our very
eyes in the South today. The thing that is being done in many sections, that is being brought to
completion and fulfillment by ministers who are trying to carry out the Gandhi tradition, wouldhe would consider um the-a fulfillment of his dream many thousand mile-uh-miles from India.
MR: There’s a very fine minister, about whom you know, Reverend King, uh is in Ghana with
his wife, and I’m sure this is going to be a very profitable visit for him and for Ghana. One of our
own very good friends, friend of Dr. Schweitzer Revered Homer Jack, a unitarian minster from
Chicago, is in Ghana and we hope we can entice him to this microphone when he comes back.
Do you think Gandhi, if he were alive today, would be happy with the progress that has been
made in America, as far as the American Negro is concerned? Uh Mrs. Thurman, do you think
that he would feel it has… [end of tape].
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Sue Bailey Thurman Recordings
Description
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This collection contains a two-part interview between Miriam Rogers and Sue Bailey Thurman. In this interview, Thurman explores the lives of Phyllis Wheatley and Amos Fortune, two black people brought to Boston on slave ships, presenting their lives of thought and action as exemplary of democracy and freedom in America. Thurman also talks briefly about the life of Harriet Tubman, and other current events, including: the growing influence of Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence, and readings from a book of "Meditations for Women," to which Thurman contributed. All in all, this interview offers a small window into the work and thinking of Sue Bailey Thurman.
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Descriptions by Rodell Jefferson III.
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1950s
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WBUR, Boston, Massachusetts
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Title
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Interview with Sue Bailey Thurman on "Presenting Albert Schweitzer" with host Miriam Rogers, Side A
Creator
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Miriam Rogers
Sue Bailey Thurman
Source
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
Date
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1959-03-10
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"><img style="border-width:0;" src="https://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc/4.0/80x15.png" alt="80x15.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License</a>. 2019.
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audio
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394-337_A
Description
An account of the resource
"Presenting Albert Schweitzer" was a radio program aired on WBUR Boston University Radio, hosted by Miriam Rogers. This episode was an interview with Sue Bailey Thurman. The introduction to the episode is provided by Norbert Ellerin.
In this interview, Sue Bailey Thurman presents the lives of Phyllis Wheatley and Amos Fortune, two black people who had arrived to America at Boston on slave ships. Thurman says that the stories of their lives should hearten all Americans, as they embody the dream of democracy and freedom in America. In addition to Wheatley and Fortune, Sue Bailey Thurman also explores the life of Harriet Tubman, and speaks to Gandhi's increasing influence on the freedom movements in both the American South and in Ghana.
Contributor
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Transcription by Kayleigh M. Whitman
Description by Rodell Jefferson.