George Moses Horton (Lesson Plan)
Overview
George Moses Horton was a slave who composed poetry and sold his poems to university students. His initial book was the first one published in the South by an African American. The sample acrostic is one written for Sion Hart Rogers, a University of North Carolina student in the 1840s, to give to Miss Mary E. V. Powell.
Students will be able to:
- Examine the unique life and work of a slave.
- Use an original acrostic to discuss and practice this form of poetry
Students should read the acrostic, as well as the short biographical sketch of Horton.
The following questions should provoke discussion.
- What was unique about George Moses Horton’s life?
- Why was it unusual for a slave to write and sell poems?
- Why did the UNC students purchase so many of Horton’s poems?
- What is an acrostic?
- What is the meaning of “buying time” from a master?
- Students may create an acrostic with their own or someone else’s name.
- Students may investigate other slaves that did unusual jobs.
PC 1533 Simpson and Biddle Papers at the North Carolina State Archives
Jackson, Blyden “George Moses Horton, North Carolinian” North Carolina Historical Review 53(April 1976) 140-147.
Sherman, Joan R., ed. The Black Bard of North Carolina: George Moses Horton and His Poetry Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1997.
Walser, Richard The Black Poet New York: Philosophical Society, 1966. “George Moses Horton” Dictionary of North Carolina Biography Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Wilson, Steven “The Slave Poet of Chapel Hill” Our State (October 2004).