New Year’s Day usually feels anticlimactic, and this one likely will be no different for many people. I find myself looking for a spark of inspiration, a great cloud of witnesses to show me the way forward. Yet the sobering truth is that the simple turn of a calendar page isn’t enough to lift the fog of an overwhelmingly difficult year.
When the world feels like too much, I look to those who bore even greater burdens in ages past. It’s hard to contemplate figures like Phillis Wheatley, Samson Occom, Olaudah Equiano, Jarena Lee, David Walker, Pandita Ramabai, William Wadé Harris, Shoki Coe, and Kosuke Koyama and still believe the world has sunk to a new low or that hope is beyond reach.
Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753–1784), the first African American to publish original poetry, wrote with a lyrical mastery that has captivated readers and confounded interpreters for generations. Scholars have marveled at the literary genius of her “double voice” (Henry Louis Gates Jr.), her political agency (David Waldstreicher), and her reclamation of relational joy (Tara Bynum).
