Screening of “In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters” and Q&A with filmmaker Leslie Askew
Friday, October 23 at 4 PM
Special Collections Libraries auditorium
300 S. Hull Street
UGA hosts a screening and discussion of “In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters,” a new, 35-minute documentary about America’s first published Black poet. Produced by Askew Pictures, the film illuminates a largely overlooked chapter of Wheatley Peters’ story: her marriage to John Peters and the radical choices she made in pursuit of autonomy, dignity, and love.
Writer and director Leslie Askew will attend the screening and participate in a discussion. Askew is an award-recognized television producer and documentary director with over twenty years of experience working across the United States, United Kingdom, Europe, and Australia. She is the founder of Askew Pictures, an independent documentary studio focused on history, culture, and social-impact storytelling. Her recent projects include Pignorant, currently streaming on Amazon Prime, and Harvesting Justice, a documentary series examining food justice and grassroots activism, set to air on PBS in 2026. Her work has been commissioned by major broadcasters, including CNN, ITV (UK), SBS (Australia), Al Jazeera, CBS, BET, and PBS.
For more about Askew Pictures, visit:
https://www.askewpictures.com
Co-sponsored by the department of history, the department of English Ballew Lecture Fund, the Georgia Colloquium in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Literature, the Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies, the Institute for African American Studies, the UGA Arts Collaborative, the UGA Special Collections Libraries, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, the Athens Branch of the ASALH (Association for the Study of African American Life and History), and the African American Genealogy Shared Interest Group of the Clarke Oconee Counties Genealogy Society.
In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters is a 35-minute documentary that reclaims the life of Phillis Wheatley Peters—America’s first published Black poet—by illuminating a largely overlooked chapter of her story: her marriage to John Peters and the radical choices she made in pursuit of autonomy, dignity, and love.
Drawing on groundbreaking archival research by historian Dr. Cornelia Dayton, the film brings newly uncovered documents and historical evidence to life, challenging long-standing narratives that have framed Phillis primarily as a literary prodigy shaped by others. Instead, the film situates her as an abolitionist actively navigating the political, economic, and racial constraints of Revolutionary-era Boston.
At the center of the film is Phillis’s 1778 marriage to John Peters, a free Black man, entrepreneur, and advocate who shared her belief in self-determination. Together, they confronted poverty, racism, and legal precarity in a society that offered little protection to Black families in the aftermath of the American Revolution. Their partnership emerges not as a footnote, but as a deliberate and meaningful act—one that reshapes how we understand Phillis’s later life and work.
Featuring insights from leading scholars, poets, and cultural historians, In Search of Phillis Wheatley Peters reframes Phillis not only as a foundational literary figure, but as a revolutionary woman whose choices—intellectual, emotional, and political—continue to resonate today.