Frances EW Harper and James Whitfield are two of the most influential anti-slavery poets of all time. Both individuals use poetry as a form of resistance and a means of expressing themselves in a time of great racial tension. Their poems speak to many different audiences, highlighting the racial injustices present in America. Harper and Whitfield's poetry, like many other works written during this era, helps us better understand the effects of slavery on African Americans. Although Frances EW Harper (1825-1911) lived in the slave state of Maryland, she was a free woman. individual due to the social status of his parents. Harpers freedom allowed him to pursue many opportunities that other black people did not have. During her youth, Harper's parents died and she began living with her uncle and aunt. While living with her uncle and aunt, Harper discovered a new way of life that taught her about abolitionism and how to be a balanced person. After learning more about social injustices and seeing how they affected black people, Harper began using writing as a positive medium. She eventually became a poetry teacher and taught important professional skills at that time. However, teaching was not Harper's passion and she felt she had to do something to improve the lives of people of her race. Harper lectured on the need to move forward and demolish social injustices. She gradually became one of the nation's leading black reformers, feminists, and civil rights activists. While fighting for civil rights, Harper continued to write poetry. She published one of her most famous works "The Slave Mother" during this period...... middle of paper ......e enslaved and oppressed. Works Cited Gates, Henry L., Jr. and Nellie Y. McKay, eds. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. Second ed. New York: Norton, 2004. Print. Gray, Janet Sinclair. Race and Time: the poetics of American women, from antislavery to racial modernity. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 2004. Print. Stancliff, Michael. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper: Rhetoric of African-American Reform and the Rise of the Modern Nation-State. New York: Routledge, 2011. Print. Whitfield, James Monroe, Robert S. Levine and Ivy G. Wilson. The Works of James M. Whitfield: America and Other Writings by a 19th-Century African-American Poet. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2011. Print. Whitley, Edward Keyes. American Bards: Walt Whitman and Other Unlikely Candidates for National Poet. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2010. Print.