The title "On Being Brought from Africa to America" sounds like a pleasant experience, right? At least, it sounds like it'd be exciting. But the speaker in this poem was brought over as a slave and into a racist culture. Although the speaker doesn't focus primarily on racism in the poem, she directly addresses prejudice against blacks in America and how faith in God can overcome that prejudice.
Through figurative imagery of darkness and racism, Wheatley makes a powerful statement against prejudice toward blacks in American society. Fight the power!
Although she's not preaching into a mic like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., our speaker uses logic, personal experience, and poetic form to make a cool, collected argument for equality in America.