From Slavery to Celebrity: Sojourner Truth
Related Black History Articles
February 15, 2007
Black History Month Hidden History II:
Sojourner Truth
By Stan Dyer
Even in a world of wealth, opportunity, and abundance, it is a remarkable thing to achieve notoriety and success on the level of celebrity. When a person is born a woman, black and a slave in 18th century America, it is truly amazing. Yet, history records a number of people who conquered such odds and one of them was Sojourner Truth.
We do not often think of the state of New York as a slave state, but, in the 18th century, only Charleston had a slave population greater than New York City. Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 to “James” and “Betsey”, the chattel property of “Colonel Ardinburgh”. By virtue of her birth, she, too, was a slave.
In her early life, she personally witnessed all the truth about slavery. She saw families broken up, and some sold to different masters. She, herself, passed in possession twice due to the death of a master. When New York abolished slavery and emancipated its slave population, Sojourner Truth earned her freedom, but she had to run away to do it. It was not long after this that she had to go to court to regain the freedom of one of her sons who was illegally “sold down the river”, and she won. Women of the time had few rights, and blacks had fewer, but Sojourner Truth conquered those obstacles to save her child. She did not stop there.
It was the time of the Second Great Awakening. This is when she changed her name to Sojourner Truth to reflect her mission in life and joined the religious movement. As a believer in the “end times”, and a “Millerite”, she joined in the age of revival, renewed spirituality, and preparation for the end of the World. Well, the world did not end, and the Second Great Awakening faded, but Sojourner Truth met enough influential people as an evangelist to open the doors to the next stage of her life, the Women’s Movement.
At a Women’s Right Movement in Akron, Ohio, she made her famous speech. She commented on men catering to white women and giving them special treatment yet ignoring her and other women of color. She asked, “A’r’nt I a woman?” Harriet Beecher Stowe heard of the incident and wrote her own article, “The Libyan Sibal” characterizing Sojourner Truth as the epitomic African queen. Stowe’s words painted a picture of Truth as noble in appearance, a vision of female strength, and proud of her African heritage. The article appeared in the Atlantic Monthly dated April 1863. Less than a month later, Frances Dana Gage rewrote Truth’s famous “A’r’nt I a Woman” speech and Truth’s celebrity was complete.
For the rest of her life, she toured and made her living giving speeches, recounting her slave experiences, and inspiring a generation. She also sold small, souvenir pictures of herself called “Cartes-de-visite” to raise money. She made enough to buy and own property, and to support herself without the help of a man, (very remarkable for the time). Later, she retired to Battle Creek, Michigan where she died on November 26, 1883.
In a time when it was difficult to be a woman, be black, and be either a slave or ex-slave, Sojourner Truth was all that and more. She conquered the odds, she conquered her social disadvantages and she conquered her world. She made a career for herself. She won the court case to free her son, she bought and sold property, and she earned enough to support herself through her retirement when most women relied on the help of a man She showed the world that women are equal. She also gained enormous celebrity, inspired a generation of social change, and helped alter people’s misconceptions of life. More than just remarkable, the life of Sojourner Truth was amazing.
(Author’s Note: As did many ex-slaves, including Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth captured her life in a “narrative”. To understand the attitudes, the lives, and the conditions of slaves, one needs to hear about it in their own words. The slave narratives go beyond the Hollywood images and relate true-life experiences. For more information on Sojourner Truth, I recommend the biography of Sojourner Truth by Nell Irvin Painter.)
More articles from this pro: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Stan Dyer
More on History
and
Black History can be found here.
|
