Gates refers to the social value that the publication of the first poetry book of Philips Whatley in 1773 took. As an African-American writer, her voice was a precedent for the recognition of African-Americans as free and independent people.
Poetry is a refined intellectual work. The circles of poets in the eighteenth century were elites in Europe. The poetry of Whatley's (because she wasn't only a woman but an Afro-American woman) was revolutionary.
Phillis Wheatley (1753 -1784), was the first African-American writer who published a book in the United States. His work "Poems on Various Subjects" was published in 1773, two years before the beginning of the United States' War of Independence, and is seen as one of the first examples of Afro-gender literature.
