Sojourner Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, is so much more than the famous “Ain’t I a Woman” speech she gave at a women’s rights gathering in 1851 and has become known for. Born in New York in 1797, without a known birth date, as dates of birth were rarely recorded for slaves, Sojourner Truth went on to meet with three presidents, including Abraham Lincoln. She spoke to Congress, and successfully won three lawsuits, the first black woman to ever do so. She was a lifelong activist and powerful speaker for the causes of abolition, women’s rights, and support of freed slaves. She was “intersectional” before academics embraced this term. Sojourner/Isabella knew from her life experiences that she suffered a form of oppression with an intensity heightened by being both black and female.
Sojourner’s life is a story of American exceptionalism. Born into slavery, sold three times in her youth, she remained a slave in the state of New York until she was 27 years old. Reflect on a person in your life who is in their twenties and imagine they have spent their entire life in hard labor, separated from family, uneducated, and often beaten and terrorized. It is difficult to contemplate. Sojourner grew up speaking Dutch in New York (called New Amsterdam until the British took control and changed the name). Dutch slaveholders thought it was good that their slaves spoke only Dutch so they could not communicate in the larger world of English-speaking settlers. When she was sold to an English-speaking family, the mistress beat her whenever Sojourner/Isabella didn’t understand the English woman’s orders.
Sojourner was a commanding physical presence, a tall woman with great strength. She worked hard as a farm and household laborer. Her master forced her into a loveless marriage to insure he owned the prodigy of the marriage.
In Sojourner’s memoir she recalls her mother telling her to trust in the stars and God. Isabella Baumfree had an epiphany when she was 43 years old. Following a calling from God, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth. How meaningful that must have been for a slave, so long “owned,” to declare herself to be her “own” person. I love a person who has the chutzpah – the temerity, to choose their own name versus a given name.
After her epiphany, Sojourner started wandering. She migrated to abolitionist gatherings and was asked to give testimony as her life as a slave. She was a powerful speaker, moving audiences to tears with her tales of beatings and the heartbreak of family separations. She was an excellent speaker and convinced many audiences to support the abolitionist cause. Sojourner never learned to read or write and counted on friends and family to read newspapers and letters to her. She would dictate her responses, as well as her memoir.
For the first time, Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, as many will discover on June 20, when the mail does not arrive, and the banks and federal offices are closed. This designation is a small acknowledgement that 1) there was slavery in this country, 2) it was ended, and 3) that ending this institution was a good thing. But it is not enough to celebrate the end of legal slavery. It is important to realize that this egregious human rights abuse existed in the land that became the United States of America, for well over 200 years before being abolished. We must recognize this fact and then realize that full civil rights, dignity, and respect for all United States citizens in our culture is still a work in progress. Sojourner’s work continues with each of us.