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• 1 media/ac91e3ffc2d92c29f1a57b5783cbf6ea.jpg 2020-12-04T10:12:58-08:00 1829 - George Moses Horton (born c. 1797) Publishes Poetry Collection 9 George Moses Horton (born c. 1797) publishes his first collection of poetry, The Hope of Liberty, the first Black American poet to publish his work in the American South. Horton was born with “slave” status but was allowed to visit UNC, where students bought his acrostic love poems and lent him books. plain 2021-09-03T08:01:18-07:00 01/01/1829 George Moses Horton (born c. 1797) publishes his first collection of poetry, The Hope of Liberty, the first Black American poet to publish his work in the American South. Horton was born with “slave” status but was allowed to visit UNC, where students bought his acrostic love poems and lent him books. Among his friends was Caroline Lee Hentz, who tutored him in grammar and advocated for the publication of his work. His enslaver did not allow him to purchase his freedom with the earnings from his poetry, despite support from the community. It was not until 1865 that he secured his freedom when he followed the Ninth Cavalry from Michigan out of North Carolina. 
  
  According to Joan R. Sherman, Horton’s role as an American poet is significant for a variety of achievements, including but not limited to his being “the first American slave to protest his bondage in verse; the first African American to publish a book in the South; the only slave to earn a significant income by selling his poems. . . . Horton also stands out among African American poets of the nineteenth century for his wide range of poetical subjects and unorthodox attitudes” (Sherman 1). 
  
  In North Carolina, June 28 has been officially designated as George Moses Horton Day since 1978. Horton is now also an inductee into North Carolina’s Literary Hall of Fame and is the “Historic Poet Laureate” of Chatham County. In 2007, a recently built residence hall was named in honor of George Moses Horton: Horton Residence Hall, the first building at UNC, and possibly the U.S., named to honor a person held as a slave. 
  
  
  
  
  SOURCES
  
  “George Moses Horton (ca. 1798-1883) and Horton Residence Hall” in “Names across the Landscape.”  The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History. 2006. Carolina Digital Library and Archives, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://museum.unc.edu/exhibits/show/names/horton-residence-hall.
  
  McKenna, Brook.  “Summary” in “Life of George M. Horton, The Colored Bard of North Carolina from The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina, to which is Prefixed the Life of the Author, written by himself” by George M. Horton.  Hillsborough: Heartt, 1845.  Rpt. in Documenting the American South.  University Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/hortonlife/summary.html.
  
  Pitts, Reginald H. “‘Let us Desert this Friendless Place’: George Moses Horton in Philadelphia--1866.” The Journal of Negro History, 80.4 (Autumn 1995): 145-156.
  
  Sherman, Joan R.  “Introduction.”  The Black Bard of North Carolina: George Moses Horton and His Poetry, edited by Joan R. Sherman.  Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1997. 1.