[AFRICAN-AMERICANA] [YWCA] Summer Fun Closing Program: Theme "A World of Fun in Forty Days" Phyllis Wheatley Branch YWCA August 11, 1967 [cover title]

Octavo, unpaginated [4pp.] Single folded sheet. Old falttened folds, else clean; near fine. A mimeographed program leaflet for an end-of-summer musical theatre performance by the girls in the Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA in Atlanta. Though there have been a number of YWCA branches with this name, some sleuthing into the name of the Branch Executive Director (Mrs. Magnoria Smothers) confirms that this branch was in Atlanta. A revue of theatre and musical numbers with a theme of world travel makes up most of the program. The first number is a "worship" number with the title "God's Trombone." THe name sof all the girls in the group, as well as their coordinators, are printed on the last leaf. Phyllis [usually spelled Phillis] Wheatley is regarded as the first African-American poet to be published in North America. Born in West Africa and sold into slavery at a young age, she ended up enslaved by the Wheatley family in Boston. In an unusual exception to standard practices, they taught her to read and write, and encouraged her talent, emancipating her soon after her book "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral" was published in 1773.…