BlackPerspective.net
Discussing the Diaspora as seen through an internal Black lens
Remembering Sojourner Truth
December 1st, 2008
Blogger Sojourner’s Place notifies us that this week was the anniversary of the passing on of the bloggers names sake (November 26, 1883).
Sojourner Truth was a former slave turned preacher and civil rights activist (both women’s and “Negro” rights). Born a slave in 1797, we don’t not know her exact birth date.
She’s best known for an 1851 speech “Ain’t I A Woman”. You can read Frances Gage’s account of the speech given by Sojourner Truth “at the Women’s Rights Convention, 1851, in Akron, Ohio. She published the account in The History of Woman Suffrage, volume 1, co-authored with Susan B. Anthony, published in 1881″.
The speech would be a precursor to the ideology of the Black Womanist off shot of the Feminist movement some 120 years later.
According to Jone Johnson Lewis:
The woman we know as Sojourner Truth was born into slavery in New York as Isabella Baumfree (after her father’s owner, Baumfree). She was sold several times, and while owned by the John Dumont family in Ulster County, married Thomas, another of Dumont’s slaves. She had five children with Thomas. In 1827, New York law emancipated all slaves, but Isabella had already left her husband and run away with her youngest child. She went to work for the family of Isaac Van Wagenen.
While working for the Van Wagenen’s — whose name she used briefly — she discovered that a member of the Dumont family had sold one of her children to slavery in Alabama. Since this son had been emancipated under New York Law, Isabella sued in court and won his return.
Isabella experienced a religious conversion, moved to New York City and to a Methodist perfectionist commune, and there came under the influence of a religious prophet named Mathias. The commune fell apart a few years later, with allegations of sexual improprieties and even murder. Isabella herself was accused of poisoning, and sued successfully for libel. She continued as well during that time to work as a household servant.
In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, believing this to be on the instructions of the Holy Spirit and became a traveling preacher (the meaning of her new name). In the late 1840s she connected with the abolitionist movement, becoming a popular speaker. In 1850, she also began speaking on woman suffrage. Her most famous speech, Ain’t I a Woman?, was given in 1851 at a women’s rights convention in Ohio.
Sojourner Truth met Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote about her for the Atlantic Monthly and wrote a new introduction to Truth’s autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth moved to Michigan and joined yet another religious commune, this one associated with the Friends. She was at one point friendly with Millerites, a religious movement that grew out of Methodism and later became the Seventh Day Adventists.
During the Civil War Sojourner Truth raised food and clothing contributions for black regiments, and met Abraham Lincoln at the White House in 1864. While there, she tried to challenge the discrimination that segregated street cars by race.
After the War ended, Sojourner Truth again spoke widely, advocating for some time a “Negro State” in the west. She spoke mainly to white audiences, and mostly on religion, “Negro” and women’s rights, and on temperance, though immediately after the Civil War she tried to organize efforts to provide jobs for black refugees from the war.
Active until 1875, when her grandson and companion fell ill and died, Sojourner Truth returned to Michigan where her health deteriorated and she died in 1883 in a Battle Creek sanitorium of infected ulcers on her legs. She was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan, after a very well-attended funeral.
——————————————————————————————-
I got to visit Sojourner Truths out door memorial in southern Michigan a few years ago. I’m 99% sure it’s in Battle Creek Michigan, because it was right across the way from the old Kellogg plant, which I believe is in Battle Creek. I was in near by Berrien Springs, Michigan that weekend for a wedding, and went over to see it.
posted in Cultural, Faith, Racial Injustice | | | View blog reactions |
One Response to “Remembering Sojourner Truth”
Leave a Reply
About The Blog
Yobachi Boswell is creator and publisher of BlackPerspecitve.net. I’m a writer, activist and political watcher based in Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve also been know to do some spoken word and MCing in my day.
I created this site to give new voice to socio-political issues that are in need of thoughtful consideration and redress.
Click the "More About The Blog" link for rest of this statement.
Also, if you like what you see, subscribe for a once a day email to be sent on days when we post; by entering your email address in the feed burner subscription box below.
- More About The Blog...
Subscribe via email
Blogroll
- AfroSpear Blogs & Info
- All About Race
- All Africa
- BlackPerspectivenet @ Youtube
- BlackPressUSA.com
- From My Brown Eyed View
- Jarrett-Carter.com
- Jena 6 Blog
- Sojourner’s Place
- Trini Gourmet
- UltravioletUnderground
Site Meter
Meta
Subscribe Via RSS
Recent Posts
- Michael Jackson Dies Today at 50
- G.I. Joe Trailer
- Obama Spook Email
- Obama The Ninja Fly Swatter
- Jada Pinkett: BlackPerspective.net Beauty of The Month
“Ain’t she something”? Much obliged for honoring this amazing woman!