Maria W. Stewart was an abolitionist, a foremother of the women's rights movement, and an advocate for African American self-determination. In 1831 and 1832 she published two short works, a compilation of devotional meditations and essays and a pamphlet that demonstrated an evolving synthesis between religious fervor and social activism. In 1832 and 1833 she delivered four public lectures, including what women's studies scholars call the first by a black woman to a mixed-gender audience, a 21 September 1832 political address on the abolition of slavery, women's rights, racial pride, and the empowerment of the disenfranchised. In 1835 a collection of her speeches and essays was published, and in 1879, just months before her death, she expanded and republished the 1832 collection of meditations. Limited information about her life was known before Marilyn Richardson's biography, Maria W. Stewart, America's First Black Woman Political Writer (1987). Her literary contributions, her evolution as a public figure, her role in paving...