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Truth Sojourner: more books (100)

THE NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH (UPDATED) by Sojourner Truth, 2010-07-20

Sojourner Truth's Step-Stomp Stride by Andrea Pinkney, 2009-11-24

Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Olive Gilbert, 2010-10-07

Narrative of Sojourner Truth (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) by Sojourner Truth, 2005-08-01

Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Anne Rockwell, 2000-12

In Their Own Words:Sojourner Truth by Peter Roop, Connie Roop, 2003-02-01

Sojourner Truth: Path to Glory (Ready-to-Read. Level 3) by Peter Merchant, 2007-01-09

Journey Toward Freedom: The Story of Sojourner Truth by Jacqueline Bernard, 1993-01-01

Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation (Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner/Sojourner Truth Series in Black Religion)

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth, Olive Gilbert, 2010-08-08

Sojourner Truth: Liberated in Christ (Heroes of the Faith) by W. Terry Whalin, 2005-06-01

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth; Olive Gilbert, 2006-11-03

Sojourner Truth: Speaking Up for Freedom (Voices for Freedom: Abolitionist Heroes) by Geoffrey M. Horn, 2009-09

Sojourner Truth: American Abolitionist (Heroes of the Faith) by Terry Whalin, 1997-06-01

lists with details

Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Sibyl
Offers full text of article by Harriet Beecher Stowe.Category Society History Personas Truth, SojournerSojourner Truth, THE LIBYAN SIBYL by Harriet Beecher Stowe Many years ago, thefew readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/BHM/sojourner_truth.txt

Extractions: SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL by Harriet Beecher Stowe Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many other engagements demanded. When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art. I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head, she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery which impressed one strangely. "So this is YOU," she said. "Yes," I answered. "Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added. "Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?" "Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round a'testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their sins agin my people." So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her arms on her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a sort of reverie. Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke out, "O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!" I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten years,the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his relative was falling. She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me. "Laws, Ma'am, HE don't know nothin' about itHE don't. Why, I've seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all torn,ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a'bitin' of 'em!" This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he seemed perfectly convulsed. She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation. "Well, you may bless the Lord you CAN laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't no laughin' matter." By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,it mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any one. I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at last said, "Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher." "IS he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself." "You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?" "No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,can't read a letter." "Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?" Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room. "When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. MY text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'" "Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers. She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own thoughts, and then began this narration: "Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her, "'Mammy, what makes you groan so?' "an' she'd say, "'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be. "'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye.' "An' says I to her, "'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?' "An' says she, "'Why, chile, you jes' look up DAR! It's Him that made all DEM!" "Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round, an' do 'most anything. "At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell you, they WAS hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An' then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no good; an' so says I, one day, "'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an' what CAN be the reason? Why, maybe you CAN'T. Well, I shouldn't wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.' "Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight, an' start off.' "An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.' "So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an' travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear away from our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I, "'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to go.' "Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I was to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to the house till late at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was Quakers, an' real kind they was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes' camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the mornin', when they came in, they asked me ef I hadn't been asleep; an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' such a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' BED, did you? I never heerd o' such a thing in my life.' "Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got a'goin' easy, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT GOD. "Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free, an' ole massa came to our home to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I didn't want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, I MET GOD! an' says I, 'O God, I didn't know as you was so great!' An' I turned right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God an' me! for it burns me!' Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were somethin' like an amberill [umbrella] that came between me an' the light, an' I felt it was SOMEBODY,somebody that stood between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, 'WHO is this?' An' then, honey, for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me; an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know you!'an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't know you!' An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the light came; an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes' like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me an' said, 'THIS IS JESUS!' An' I spoke out with all my might, an' says I, 'THIS IS JESUS! Glory be to God!' An' then the whole world grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an' said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel such a love in my soul as I never felt before,love to all creatures. An' then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks, that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,think o' them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I cried out loud,'Lord, Lord, I can love EVEN DE WHITE FOLKS!' "Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it,I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get HIM away,so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I won't let any one know.'" "But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?" "No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',been to no meetin'. Nobody hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started, 'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an I said, 'He's found him, too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An' then they sung this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad English as from good): 'There is a holy city, A world of light above, Above the stairs and regions,* Built by the God of Love. "An Everlasting temple, And saints arrayed in white There serve their great Redeemer And dwell with him in light. "The meanest child of glory Outshines the radiant sun; But who can speak the splendor Of Jesus on his throne? "Is this the man of sorrows Who stood at Pilate's bar, Condemned by haughty Herod And by his men of war? "He seems a mighty conqueror, Who spoiled the powers below, And ransomed many captives From everlasting woe. "The hosts of saints around him Proclaim his work of grace, The patriarchs and prophets, And all the godly race, "Who speak of fiery trials And tortures on their way; They came from tribulation To everlasting day. "And what shall be my journey, How long I'll stay below, Or what shall be my trials, Are not for me to know. "In every day of trouble I'll raise my thoughts on high, I'll think of that bright temple And crowns above the sky." * Starry regions. I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her own. It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the "Marseillaise" in a manner that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and impersonation of the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose against aristocratic oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner, singing this hymn, seemed to impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia, wild, savage, hunted of all nations, but burning after God in her tropic heart, and stretching her scarred hands towards the glory to be revealed. "Well, den ye see, after a while, I thought I'd go back an' see de folks on de ole place. Well, you know, de law had passed dat de culled folks was all free; an' my old missis, she had a daughter married about dis time who went to live in Alabama,an' what did she do but give her my son, a boy about de age of dis yer, for her to take down to Alabama? When I got back to de ole place, they told me about it, an' I went right up to see ole missis, an' says I, "'Missis, have you been an' sent my son away down to Alabama?' "'Yes, I have,' says she; 'he's gone to live with your young missis.' "'Oh, Missis,' says I, 'how could you do it?' "'Poh!' says she, 'what a fuss you make about a little nigger! Got more of 'em now than you know what to do with.' "I tell you, I stretched up. I felt as tall as the world! "'Missis,' says I, 'I'LL HAVE MY SON BACK AGIN!' "She laughed. "'YOU will, you nigger? How you goin' to do it? You ha'n't got no money." "'No, Missis,but GOD has,an' you'll see He'll help me!'an' I turned round an' went out. "Oh, but I WAS angry to have her speak to me so haughty an' so scornful, as ef my chile wasn't worth anything. I said to God, 'O Lord, render unto her double!' It was a dreadful prayer, an' I didn't know how true it would come. "Well, I didn't rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the Lord, an' I said to Him, 'O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an' you was as poor as I be, I'd help you,you KNOW I would; and, oh, do help me!' An' I felt sure then that He would. "Well, I talked with people, an' they said I must git the case before a grand jury. So I went into the town when they was holdin' a court, to see ef I could find any grand jury. An' I stood round the court-house, an' when they was a-comin' out, I walked right up to the grandest-lookin' one I could see, an' says I to him, "'Sir, be you a grand jury?' "An' then he wanted to know why I asked, an' I told him all about it; an' he asked me all sorts of questions, an' finally he says to me, "'I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I'd agree to git your son for you.' An' says he, pointin' to a house over the way, 'You go 'long an' tell your story to the folks in that house, an' I guess they'll give you the money.' "Well, I went, an' I told them, an' they gave me twenty dollars; an' then I thought to myself, 'Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty dollars will git him SARTIN.' So I carried it to the man all out, an' said, "'Take it all,only be sure an' git him.' "Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an' then they tried to frighten him, an' to make him say that I wasn't his mammy, an' that he didn't know me; but they couldn't make it out. They gave him to me, an' I took him an' carried him home; an' when I came to take off his clothes, there was his poor little back all covered with scars an' hard lumps, where they'd flogged him. "Well, you see, honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render unto her double. Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis' house not long after, an' I heerd 'em readin' a letter to her how her daughter's husband had murdered her,how he'd thrown her down an' stamped the life out of her, when he was in liquor; an' my ole missis, she giv a screech, an' fell flat on the floor. Then says I, 'O Lord, I didn't mean all that! You took me up too quick.' "Well, I went in an' tended that poor critter all night. She was out of her mind,a-cryin', an' callin' for her daughter; an' I held her poor ole head on my arm, an' watched for her as ef she'd been my babby. An' I watched by her, an' took care on her all through her sickness after that, an' she died in my arms, poor thing!" "Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?" "No, 'deed! My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked Him to give me a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an' down the land, showin' the people their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people. "Ye see some ladies have given me a white satin banner," she said, pulling out of her pocket and unfolding a white banner, printed with many texts, such as, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," and others of like nature. "Well," she said, "I journeys round to camp-meetins, an' wherever folks is, an' I sets up my banner, an' then I sings, an' then folks always comes up round me, an' then I preaches to 'em. I tells 'em about Jesus, an' I tells 'em about the sins of this people. A great many always comes to hear me; an' they're right good to me, too, an' say they want to hear me agin." We all thought it likely; and as the company left her, they shook hands with her, and thanked her for her very original sermon; and one of the ministers was overheard to say to another, "There's more of the gospel in that story than in most sermons." Sojourner stayed several days with us, a welcome guest. Her conversation was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll flavoring of humor, that the Professor was wont to say of an evening, "Come, I am dull, can't you get Sojourner up here to talk a little?" She would come up into the parlor, and sit among pictures and ornaments, in her simple stuff gown, with her heavy travelling-shoes, the central object of attention both to parents and children, always ready to talk or to sing, and putting into the common flow of conversation the keen edge of some shrewd remark. "Sojourner, what do you think of Women's Rights?" "Well, honey, I's ben to der meetins, an' harked a good deal. Dey wanted me for to speak. So I got up. Says I,'Sisters, I a'n't clear what you'd be after. Ef women want any rights more 'n dey's got, why don't dey jes' TAKE 'EM, an' not be talkin' about it?' Some on 'em came round me, an' asked why I didn't wear Bloomers. An' I told 'em I had Bloomers enough when I was in bondage. You see," she said, "dey used to weave what dey called nigger-cloth, an' each one of us got jes' sech a strip, an' had to wear it width-wise. Them that was short got along pretty well, but as for me"She gave an indescribably droll glance at her long limbs and then at us, and added,"Tell YOU, I had enough of Bloomers in them days." Sojourner then proceeded to give her views of the relative capacity of the sexes, in her own way. "S'pose a man's mind holds a quart, an' a woman's don't hold but a pint; ef her pint is FULL, it's as good as his quart." Sojourner was fond of singing an extraordinary lyric, commencing, "I'm on my way to Canada, That cold, but happy land; The dire effects of Slavery I can no longer stand. O righteous Father, Do look down on me, And help me on to Canada, Where colored folks are free!" The lyric ran on to state, that, when the fugitive crosses the Canada line, "The Queen comes down unto the shore, With arms extended wide, To welcome the poor fugitive Safe onto Freedom's side." In the truth thus set forth she seemed to have the most simple faith. But her chief delight was to talk of "glory," and to sing hymns whose burden was, "O glory, glory, glory, Won't you come along with me?" and when left to herself, she would often hum these with great delight, nodding her head. On one occasion, I remember her sitting at a window singing and fervently keeping time with her head, the little black Puck of a grandson meanwhile amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and- yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her emotions, causing him perfect convulsions of delight. "Sojourner," said the Professor to her, one day, when he heard her singing, "you seem to be very sure about heaven." "Well, I be," she answered, triumphantly. "What makes you so sure there is any heaven?" "Well, 'cause I got such a hankerin' arter it in here," she said, giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy. There was at the time an invalid in the house, and Sojourner, on learning it, felt a mission to go and comfort her. It was curious to see the tall, gaunt, dusky figure stalk up to the bed with such an air of conscious authority, and take on herself the office of consoler with such a mixture of authority and tenderness. She talked as from above,and at the same time, if a pillow needed changing or any office to be rendered, she did it with a strength and handiness that inspired trust. One felt as if the dark, strange woman were quite able to take up the invalid in her bosom, and bear her as a lamb, both physically and spiritually. There was both power and sweetness in that great warm soul and that vigorous frame. At length, Sojourner, true to her name, departed. She had her mission elsewhere. Where now she is I know not; but she left deep memories behind her. To these recollections of my own I will add one more anecdote, related by Wendell Phillips. Speaking of the power of Rachel to move and bear down a whole audience by a few simple words, he said he never knew but one other human being that had that power, and that other was Sojourner Truth. He related a scene of which he was witness. It was at a crowded public meeting in Faneuil Hall, where Frederick Douglas was one of the chief speakers. Douglas had been describing the wrongs of the black race, and as he proceeded, he grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done. Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat, facing the platform; and in the hush of deep feeling, after Douglas sat down, she spoke out in her deep, peculiar voice, heard all over the house, "Frederick, IS GOD DEAD?" The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the whole house, changing as by a flash the whole feeling of the audience. Not another word she said or needed to say; it was enough. It is with a sad feeling that one contemplates noble minds and bodies, nobly and grandly formed human beings, that have come to us cramped, scarred, maimed, out of the prison-house of bondage. One longs to know what such beings might have become, if suffered to unfold and expand under the kindly developing influences of education. It is the theory of some writers, that to the African is reserved, in the later and palmier days of the earth, the full and harmonious development of the religious element in man. The African seems to seize on the tropical fervor and luxuriance of Scripture imagery as something native; he appears to feel himself to be of the same blood with those old burning, simple souls, the patriarchs, prophets, and seers, whose impassioned words seem only grafted as foreign plants on the cooler stock of the Occidental mind. I cannot but think that Sojourner with the same culture might have spoken words as eloquent and undying as those of the African Saint Augustine or Tertullian. How grand and queenly a woman she might have been, with her wonderful physical vigor, her great heaving sea of emotion, her power of spiritual conception, her quick penetration, and her boundless energy! We might conceive an African type of woman so largely made and moulded, so much fuller in all the elements of life, physical and spiritual, that the dark hue of the skin should seem only to add an appropriate charm,as Milton says of his Penseroso, whom he imagines "Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The sea-nymph's." But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from among us as a wave of the sea, her memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story, which attracted so much attention in the late World's Exhibition. Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner's history to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. His glorious Cleopatra was then in process of evolution, and his mind was working out the problem of her broadly developed nature, of all that slumbering weight and fulness of passion with which this statue seems charged, as a heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity. The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into the deeper recesses of the African nature,those unexplored depths of being and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic depths of tropical forests, mysterious as the hidden rivers and mines of that burning continent whose life-history is yet to be. A few days after, he told me that he had conceived the idea of a statue which he should call the Libyan Sibyl. Two years subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found the gorgeous Cleopatra finished, a thing to marvel at, as the creation of a new style of beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and repeat to him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the conception had never left him. I did so; and a day or two after, he showed me the clay model of the Libyan Sibyl. I have never seen the marble statue; but am told by those who have, that it was by far the most impressive work of art at the Exhibition. A notice of the two statues from the London "Athenaeum" must supply a description which I cannot give. "The Cleopatra and the Sibyl are seated, partly draped, with the characteristic Egyptian gown, that gathers about the torso and falls freely around the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, while from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or wings, that fall upon her shoulders. The Sibilla Libica has crossed her knees,an action universally held amongst the ancients as indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. A secret-keeping looking dame she is, in the full-bloom proportions of ripe womanhood, wherein choosing to place his figure the sculptor has deftly gone between the disputed point whether these women were blooming and wise in youth, or deeply furrowed with age and burdened with the knowledge of centuries, as Virgil, Livy, and Gellius say. Good artistic example might be quoted on both sides. Her forward elbow is propped upon one knee; and to keep her secrets close, for this Libyan woman is the closest of all the Sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed palm, as if holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that looks out through mournful, warning eyes, seen under the wide shade of the strange horned (ammonite) crest, that bears the mystery of the Tetragrammaton upon its upturned front. Over her full bosom, mother of myriads as she was, hangs the same symbol. Her face has a Nubian cast, her hair wavy and plaited, as is meet." We hope to see the day when copies both of the Cleopatra and the Libyan Sibyl shall adorn the Capitol at Washington. SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL by Harriet Beecher Stowe Atlantic Monthly 11 (April 1863): 473-481.
Sojourner Truth Biography Page
Supplies a biography of the early American female abolitionist from New York whose real name was Isabella Baumfree. Born Isabella Baumfree, Sojourner Truth was one of the earliest and most passionate of female abolitionistsfor she
http://www.civilwarhome.com/truthbio.htm

Extractions: She also spoke of the living conditions many slaves were forced to endure, crowded together into cabins with no privacy, overworked, fed scraps in many cases, and clothed in threadbare hand-me-downs. Her audiences must have felt the shame as Truth recalled the auction block, upon which men and women alike were frequently forced to strip and stand before potential buyers, who would search their bodies for marks of the whip or of wrist or leg irons, the presence of which would indicate the slave had been frequently punished. The slaves would be forced to endure impersonal and degrading inspections of their teeth, muscles, and other body parts, depending on what the buyer was looking for in the purchase. Truth was self-educated, and much of her speaking bore the stamp of a deep love of and acquaintance with Scripture. When explaining to Harriet Beecher Stowe how she came to change her name, Truth said she felt God had called her "to travel up and down the land, showing the people their sins and being a sign unto them." She also possessed a quick wit, coupled with an ability to think fast and turn the unkind words of others against them. Facing a heckler once who told her he did not care for her anti-slavery talk anymore than he would for the bite of a flea, Truth retorted, "Perhaps not, but Lord willing I'll keep you scratching."
African American Journey Truth, Sojourner
Biography, portrait and related links from the publishers of World Book Encyclopedia.
http://www2.worldbook.com/features/aajourney/html/bh052.html
Truth, Sojourner
An article at Africana.com about this American abolitionist, women's rights advocate, and religious Category Society History Personas Truth, SojournerSojourner Truth, African American abolitionist, women's rights advocate, andreligious visionary. An article at Africana.com. Writer Sojourner Truth.
http://www.africana.com/Articles/tt_058.htm
Sojourner Truth - Biography - Pictures - Photos - History - EBooks
Pictures, biography, and history of the civil rights leader.
http://www.topicsites.com/sojourner-truth/

Extractions: Sojourner Truth African American Authors Pictures Biography History ... eBooks Sojourner Truth The subject of this biography, Sojourner Truth, as she now calls herself but whose name, originally, was Isabella was born, as near as she can now calculate, between the years 1797 and 1800. She was the daughter of James and Betsey, slaves of one Colonel Ardinburgh, Hurley, Ulster County, New York. Colonel Ardinburgh belonged to that class of people called Low Dutch. Of her first master, she can give no account, as she must have been a mere infant when he died; and she, with her parents and some ten or twelve other fellow human chattels, became the legal property of his son, Charles Ardinburgh. She distinctly remembers hearing her father and mother say, that their lot was a fortunate one, as Master Charles was the best of the family,-being, comparatively speaking, a kind master to his slaves. James and Betsey having, by their faithfulness, docility, and respectful behavior, won his particular regard, received from him particular favors-among which was a lot of land, lying back on the slope of a mountain, where, by improving the pleasant evenings and Sundays, they managed to raise a little tobacco, corn, or flax; which they exchanged for extras, in the articles of food or clothing for themselves and children. She has no remembrance that Saturday afternoon was ever added to their own time, as it is by some masters in the Southern States... more THE NARRATIVE OF SOJOURNER TRUTH:
Sojourner's Biography
Sojourner's Amazing Life And Beyond The Sojourner Truth Biography.Before entering the four part tour of Sojourner's life, you
http://www.sojournertruth.org/History/Biography/Default.htm
ThinkQuest Library Of Entries
Stamp on Black History Home Page Menu.
http://library.advanced.org/10320/Truth.htm

Extractions: The web site you have requested, Stamp on Black History , is one of over 4000 student created entries in our Library. Before using our Library, please be sure that you have read and agreed to our To learn more about ThinkQuest. You can browse other ThinkQuest Library Entries To proceed to Stamp on Black History click here Back to the Previous Page The Site you have Requested ... click here to view this site Click image for the Site Languages : Site Desciption This excellent site lists all of the black Americans on stamps, both alphabetically and by subject areas, and includes a biography of each person. It also gives a history of the postage stamp, offers advice on stamp collecting, and includes a fantastic games and activities area for classrooms. A tour of black history, from 300 to the present, is also included.
Sojourner's Biography
Sojourner's Amazing Life The Sojourner Truth Biography Before entering the four part tour of Sojourner's life, you may want to read this narrative biography called "Legacy of Faith."
http://www.sojournertruth.org/History/Biography
Project Gutenberg Titles By Truth, Sojourner
Project Gutenberg Titles by. Sojourner Truth. Narrative of SojournerTruth (1850 edition). You can also look up this author on The
http://digital.library.upenn.edu/webbin/gutbook/author?name=Truth, Sojourner
PROJECT GUTENBERG OFFICIAL HOME SITE -- Listing By AUTHOR
Sojourner Truth.
http://promo.net/cgi-promo/pg/cat.cgi?&label=ID&ftpsite=ftp://ibiblio.or
Who2 Profile: Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth Reformer. Name at birth Isabella Baumfree
http://www.who2.com/sojournertruth.html

Extractions: SOJOURNER TRUTH Reformer Name at birth: Isabella Baumfree Born into slavery, Isabella was sold many times until her freedom in 1827. By 1843 she was a travelling preacher, and she changed her name to Sojourner Truth. Although she could neither read nor write, Truth was a captivating speaker, an evangelist who trumpeted the causes of women's rights and the abolition of slavery. In 1851, at a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, she gave her famous speech, "Ain't I A Woman," challenging the notion that men were superior to women. After the U.S. Civil War, she was an advocate for freed slaves.
AFRO-AMERICAN ALMANAC - African-American History Resource
YOUR INTERNET RESOURCE FOR AFRICANAMERICAN HISTORY Sojourner Truth,THE LIBYAN SIBYL By Harriet Beecher Stowe. Many years ago, the
http://www.toptags.com/aama/books/book6.htm

Extractions: Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many other engagements demanded. When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art. I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head, she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery which impressed one strangely.
Biographies Of Suffragists
Brief profiles. Includes Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Stone Blackwell, Harriet Stanton Blatch, Amelia Bloomer, Carrie Chapman Catt, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Julia Ward Howe, Lucretia Mott, Anna Howard Shaw, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucy Stone and Sojourner Truth.
http://www.rochester.edu/SBA/biographies.html

Extractions: Biographies of Suffragists ACWL Home About ACWL ACWL Resources ACWL Programs ... Email the ACWL SUSAN B. ANTHONY For over fifty years Susan B. Anthony was the leader of the American woman suffrage movement. Born in Adams, Massachusetts on February 15, 1820, Anthony lived for many years in Rochester. When she died in 1906 only four states allowed women to vote, but Anthony's single-minded dedication to the cause of suffrage was largely responsible for the passage of the nineteenth amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920 giving women the vote. In 1872 Anthony was arrested for voting. ALICE STONE BLACKWELL After graduating from Boston University in 1881, Alice Stone Blackwell, the daughter of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell, began working on her parents' newspaper, The Women's Journal. She served as editor of the paper for the next thirty-five years. Blackwell was instrumental in bringing about a reconciliation between the two factions of the woman's suffrage movement in 1890 and served as the recording secretary of the new organization for many years. Besides her efforts for women's rights, Blackwell was also very active in the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the Women's Trade Union League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the American Peace Society. ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL Born in Henrietta, New York, Antoinette Brown Blackwell received a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1847 and then, much to the consternation of the college, applied to study theology. Although she finished the requirements for the program in 1850, Oberlin did not allow her to graduate. Undeterred, she was ordained in 1853 as minister of the First Congregational Church in Butler and Savannah, Wayne County, New York, and thus became the first ordained woman minister of a recognized denomination in the United States.
Gale - Free Resources - Black History Month - Biographies - Sojourner Truth
Short biography and portrait of this abolitionist and women's rights activist.Category Kids and Teens People and Society Truth, SojournerSojourner Truth. After taking the name Sojourner Truth, which she felt God had givenher, she assumed the mission of spreading the Truth across the country.
http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/truth_s.htm
Sojourner Truth, The Libyan Sibyl
Transcript of Harriet Beecher Stowe's tribute.
http://eserver.org/fiction/sojourner-truth.txt

Extractions: SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL by Harriet Beecher Stowe Many years ago, the few readers of radical Abolitionist papers must often have seen the singular name of Sojourner Truth, announced as a frequent speaker at Anti-Slavery meetings, and as travelling on a sort of self-appointed agency through the country. I had myself often remarked the name, but never met the individual. On one occasion, when our house was filled with company, several eminent clergymen being our guests, notice was brought up to me that Sojourner Truth was below, and requested an interview. Knowing nothing of her but her singular name, I went down, prepared to make the interview short, as the pressure of many other engagements demanded. When I went into the room, a tall, spare form arose to meet me. She was evidently a full-blooded African, and though now aged and worn with many hardships, still gave the impression of a physical development which in early youth must have been as fine a specimen of the torrid zone as Cumberworth's celebrated statuette of the Negro Woman at the Fountain. Indeed, she so strongly reminded me of that figure, that, when I recall the events of her life, as she narrated them to me, I imagine her as a living, breathing impersonation of that work of art. I do not recollect ever to have been conversant with any one who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman. In the modern Spiritualistic phraseology, she would be described as having a strong sphere. Her tall form, as she rose up before me, is still vivid to my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel. On her head, she wore a bright Madras handkerchief, arranged as a turban, after the manner of her race. She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease,in fact, there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor, in the odd, composed manner in which she looked down on me. Her whole air had at times a gloomy sort of drollery which impressed one strangely. "So this is YOU," she said. "Yes," I answered. "Well, honey, de Lord bless ye! I jes' thought I'd like to come an' have a look at ye. You's heerd o' me, I reckon?" she added. "Yes, I think I have. You go about lecturing, do you not?" "Yes, honey, that's what I do. The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round a'testifyin', an' showin' on 'em their sins agin my people." So saying, she took a seat, and, stooping over and crossing her arms on her knees, she looked down on the floor, and appeared to fall into a sort of reverie. Her great gloomy eyes and her dark face seemed to work with some undercurrent of feeling; she sighed deeply, and occasionally broke out, "O Lord! O Lord! Oh, the tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!" I should have said that she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten years,the fattest, jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine. He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out into an audible giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his relative was falling. She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me. "Laws, Ma'am, HE don't know nothin' about itHE don't. Why, I've seen them poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all torn,ears hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a'bitin' of 'em!" This set off our little African Puck into another giggle, in which he seemed perfectly convulsed. She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation. "Well, you may bless the Lord you CAN laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't no laughin' matter." By this time I thought her manner so original that it might be worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed perfectly well pleased with the idea. An audience was what she wanted,it mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She had things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any one. I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful. No princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I presented one after another to her, and at last said, "Sojourner, this is Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher." "IS he?" she said, offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself." "You are?" said Dr. Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?" "No, honey, can't preach from de Bible,can't read a letter." "Why, Sojourner, what do you preach from, then?" Her answer was given with a solemn power of voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room. "When I preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. MY text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'" "Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers. She paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own thoughts, and then began this narration: "Well, now, I'll jest have to go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing, not bigger than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole mammy would sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an' groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her, "'Mammy, what makes you groan so?' "an' she'd say, "'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to think o' my poor children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but I can't tell where they be. "'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up, you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an' have great troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come on ye, ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye.' "An' says I to her, "'Who is God, anyhow, mammy?' "An' says she, "'Why, chile, you jes' look up DAR! It's Him that made all DEM!" "Well, I didn't mind much 'bout God in them days. I grew up pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a boat, or ride a horse, or work round, an' do 'most anything. "At last I got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell you, they WAS hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An' then I thought o' what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd got into trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd some one tell a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought, 'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went down in the lot, an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used to go down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no good; an' so says I, one day, "'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an' what CAN be the reason? Why, maybe you CAN'T. Well, I shouldn't wonder ef you couldn't. Well, now, I tell you, I'll make a bargain with you. Ef you'll help me to git away from my massa an' missis, I'll agree to be good; but ef you don't help me, I really don't think I can be. Now,' says I, 'I want to git away; but the trouble's jest here: ef I try to git away in the night, I can't see; an' ef I try to git away in the daytime, they'll see me, an' be after me.' "Then the Lord said to me, 'Git up two or three hours afore daylight, an' start off.' "An' says I, 'Thank 'ee, Lord! that's a good thought.' "So up I got, about three o'clock in the mornin', an' I started an' travelled pretty fast, till, when the sun rose, I was clear away from our place an' our folks, an' out o' sight. An' then I begun to think I didn't know nothin' where to go. So I kneeled down, and says I, "'Well, Lord, you've started me out, an' now please to show me where to go.' "Then the Lord made a house appear to me, an' He said to me that I was to walk on till I saw that house, an' then go in an' ask the people to take me. An' I travelled all day, an' didn't come to the house till late at night; but when I saw it, sure enough, I went in, an' I told the folks that the Lord sent me; an' they was Quakers, an' real kind they was to me. They jes' took me in, an' did for me as kind as ef I'd been one of 'em; an' after they'd giv me supper, they took me into a room where there was a great, tall, white bed; an' they told me to sleep there. Well, honey, I was kind o' skeered when they left me alone with that great white bed; 'cause I never had been in a bed in my life. It never came into my mind they could mean me to sleep in it. An' so I jes' camped down under it, on the floor, an' then I slep' pretty well. In the mornin', when they came in, they asked me ef I hadn't been asleep; an' I said, 'Yes, I never slep' better.' An' they said, 'Why, you haven't been in the bed!' An' says I, 'Laws, you didn't think o' such a thing as my sleepin' in dat 'ar' BED, did you? I never heerd o' such a thing in my life.' "Well, ye see, honey, I stayed an' lived with 'em. An' now jes' look here: instead o' keepin' my promise an' bein' good, as I told the Lord I would, jest as soon as everything got a'goin' easy, I FORGOT ALL ABOUT GOD. "Pretty well don't need no help; an' I gin up prayin.' I lived there two or three years, an' then the slaves in New York were all set free, an' ole massa came to our home to make a visit, an' he asked me ef I didn't want to go back an' see the folks on the ole place. An' I told him I did. So he said, ef I'd jes' git into the wagon with him, he'd carry me over. Well, jest as I was goin' out to git into the wagon, I MET GOD! an' says I, 'O God, I didn't know as you was so great!' An' I turned right round an' come into the house, an' set down in my room; for 't was God all around me. I could feel it burnin', burnin', burnin' all around me, an' goin' through me; an' I saw I was so wicked, it seemed as ef it would burn me up. An' I said, 'O somebody, somebody, stand between God an' me! for it burns me!' Then, honey, when I said so, I felt as it were somethin' like an amberill [umbrella] that came between me an' the light, an' I felt it was SOMEBODY,somebody that stood between me an' God; an' it felt cool, like a shade; an' says I, 'Who's this that stands between me an' God? Is it old Cato?' He was a pious old preacher; but then I seemed to see Cato in the light, an' he was all polluted an' vile, like me; an' I said, 'Is it old Sally?' an' then I saw her, an' she seemed jes' so. An' then says I, 'WHO is this?' An' then, honey, for a while it was like the sun shinin' in a pail o' water, when it moves up an' down; for I begun to feel 't was somebody that loved me; an' I tried to know him. An' I said, 'I know you! I know you! I know you!'an' then I said, 'I don't know you! I don't know you! I don't know you!' An' when I said, 'I know you, I know you,' the light came; an' when I said, 'I don't know you, I don't know you,' it went, jes' like the sun in a pail o' water. An' finally somethin' spoke out in me an' said, 'THIS IS JESUS!' An' I spoke out with all my might, an' says I, 'THIS IS JESUS! Glory be to God!' An' then the whole world grew bright, an' the trees they waved an' waved in glory, an' every little bit o' stone on the ground shone like glass; an' I shouted an' said, 'Praise, praise, praise to the Lord!' An' I begun to feel such a love in my soul as I never felt before,love to all creatures. An' then, all of a sudden, it stopped, an' I said, 'Dar's de white folks, that have abused you an' beat you an' abused your people,think o' them!' But then there came another rush of love through my soul, an' I cried out loud,'Lord, Lord, I can love EVEN DE WHITE FOLKS!' "Honey, I jes' walked round an' round in a dream. Jesus loved me! I knowed it,I felt it. Jesus was my Jesus. Jesus would love me always. I didn't dare tell nobody; 't was a great secret. Everything had been got away from me that I ever had; an' I thought that ef I let white folks know about this, maybe they'd get HIM away,so I said, 'I'll keep this close. I won't let any one know.'" "But, Sojourner, had you never been told about Jesus Christ?" "No, honey. I hadn't heerd no preachin',been to no meetin'. Nobody hadn't told me. I'd kind o' heerd of Jesus, but thought he was like Gineral Lafayette, or some o' them. But one night there was a Methodist meetin' somewhere in our parts, an' I went; an' they got up an' begun for to tell der 'speriences; an' de fust one begun to speak. I started, 'cause he told about Jesus. 'Why,' says I to myself, 'dat man's found him, too!' An' another got up an' spoke, an I said, 'He's found him, too!' An' finally I said, 'Why, they all know him!' I was so happy! An' then they sung this hymn": (Here Sojourner sang, in a strange, cracked voice, but evidently with all her soul and might, mispronouncing the English, but seeming to derive as much elevation and comfort from bad English as from good): 'There is a holy city, A world of light above, Above the stairs and regions,* Built by the God of Love. "An Everlasting temple, And saints arrayed in white There serve their great Redeemer And dwell with him in light. "The meanest child of glory Outshines the radiant sun; But who can speak the splendor Of Jesus on his throne? "Is this the man of sorrows Who stood at Pilate's bar, Condemned by haughty Herod And by his men of war? "He seems a mighty conqueror, Who spoiled the powers below, And ransomed many captives From everlasting woe. "The hosts of saints around him Proclaim his work of grace, The patriarchs and prophets, And all the godly race, "Who speak of fiery trials And tortures on their way; They came from tribulation To everlasting day. "And what shall be my journey, How long I'll stay below, Or what shall be my trials, Are not for me to know. "In every day of trouble I'll raise my thoughts on high, I'll think of that bright temple And crowns above the sky." * Starry regions. I put in this whole hymn, because Sojourner, carried away with her own feeling, sang it from beginning to end with a triumphant energy that held the whole circle around her intently listening. She sang with the strong barbaric accent of the native African, and with those indescribable upward turns and those deep gutturals which give such a wild, peculiar power to the negro singing,but above all, with such an overwhelming energy of personal appropriation that the hymn seemed to be fused in the furnace of her feelings and come out recrystallized as a production of her own. It is said that Rachel was wont to chant the "Marseillaise" in a manner that made her seem, for the time, the very spirit and impersonation of the gaunt, wild, hungry, avenging mob which rose against aristocratic oppression; and in like manner, Sojourner, singing this hymn, seemed to impersonate the fervor of Ethiopia, wild, savage, hunted of all nations, but burning after God in her tropic heart, and stretching her scarred hands towards the glory to be revealed. "Well, den ye see, after a while, I thought I'd go back an' see de folks on de ole place. Well, you know, de law had passed dat de culled folks was all free; an' my old missis, she had a daughter married about dis time who went to live in Alabama,an' what did she do but give her my son, a boy about de age of dis yer, for her to take down to Alabama? When I got back to de ole place, they told me about it, an' I went right up to see ole missis, an' says I, "'Missis, have you been an' sent my son away down to Alabama?' "'Yes, I have,' says she; 'he's gone to live with your young missis.' "'Oh, Missis,' says I, 'how could you do it?' "'Poh!' says she, 'what a fuss you make about a little nigger! Got more of 'em now than you know what to do with.' "I tell you, I stretched up. I felt as tall as the world! "'Missis,' says I, 'I'LL HAVE MY SON BACK AGIN!' "She laughed. "'YOU will, you nigger? How you goin' to do it? You ha'n't got no money." "'No, Missis,but GOD has,an' you'll see He'll help me!'an' I turned round an' went out. "Oh, but I WAS angry to have her speak to me so haughty an' so scornful, as ef my chile wasn't worth anything. I said to God, 'O Lord, render unto her double!' It was a dreadful prayer, an' I didn't know how true it would come. "Well, I didn't rightly know which way to turn; but I went to the Lord, an' I said to Him, 'O Lord, ef I was as rich as you be, an' you was as poor as I be, I'd help you,you KNOW I would; and, oh, do help me!' An' I felt sure then that He would. "Well, I talked with people, an' they said I must git the case before a grand jury. So I went into the town when they was holdin' a court, to see ef I could find any grand jury. An' I stood round the court-house, an' when they was a-comin' out, I walked right up to the grandest-lookin' one I could see, an' says I to him, "'Sir, be you a grand jury?' "An' then he wanted to know why I asked, an' I told him all about it; an' he asked me all sorts of questions, an' finally he says to me, "'I think, ef you pay me ten dollars, that I'd agree to git your son for you.' An' says he, pointin' to a house over the way, 'You go 'long an' tell your story to the folks in that house, an' I guess they'll give you the money.' "Well, I went, an' I told them, an' they gave me twenty dollars; an' then I thought to myself, 'Ef ten dollars will git him, twenty dollars will git him SARTIN.' So I carried it to the man all out, an' said, "'Take it all,only be sure an' git him.' "Well, finally they got the boy brought back; an' then they tried to frighten him, an' to make him say that I wasn't his mammy, an' that he didn't know me; but they couldn't make it out. They gave him to me, an' I took him an' carried him home; an' when I came to take off his clothes, there was his poor little back all covered with scars an' hard lumps, where they'd flogged him. "Well, you see, honey, I told you how I prayed the Lord to render unto her double. Well, it came true; for I was up at ole missis' house not long after, an' I heerd 'em readin' a letter to her how her daughter's husband had murdered her,how he'd thrown her down an' stamped the life out of her, when he was in liquor; an' my ole missis, she giv a screech, an' fell flat on the floor. Then says I, 'O Lord, I didn't mean all that! You took me up too quick.' "Well, I went in an' tended that poor critter all night. She was out of her mind,a-cryin', an' callin' for her daughter; an' I held her poor ole head on my arm, an' watched for her as ef she'd been my babby. An' I watched by her, an' took care on her all through her sickness after that, an' she died in my arms, poor thing!" "Well, Sojourner, did you always go by this name?" "No, 'deed! My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked Him to give me a new name. And the Lord gave me Sojourner, because I was to travel up an' down the land, showin' the people their sins, an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names; and the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people. "Ye see some ladies have given me a white satin banner," she said, pulling out of her pocket and unfolding a white banner, printed with many texts, such as, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof," and others of like nature. "Well," she said, "I journeys round to camp-meetins, an' wherever folks is, an' I sets up my banner, an' then I sings, an' then folks always comes up round me, an' then I preaches to 'em. I tells 'em about Jesus, an' I tells 'em about the sins of this people. A great many always comes to hear me; an' they're right good to me, too, an' say they want to hear me agin." We all thought it likely; and as the company left her, they shook hands with her, and thanked her for her very original sermon; and one of the ministers was overheard to say to another, "There's more of the gospel in that story than in most sermons." Sojourner stayed several days with us, a welcome guest. Her conversation was so strong, simple, shrewd, and with such a droll flavoring of humor, that the Professor was wont to say of an evening, "Come, I am dull, can't you get Sojourner up here to talk a little?" She would come up into the parlor, and sit among pictures and ornaments, in her simple stuff gown, with her heavy travelling-shoes, the central object of attention both to parents and children, always ready to talk or to sing, and putting into the common flow of conversation the keen edge of some shrewd remark. "Sojourner, what do you think of Women's Rights?" "Well, honey, I's ben to der meetins, an' harked a good deal. Dey wanted me for to speak. So I got up. Says I,'Sisters, I a'n't clear what you'd be after. Ef women want any rights more 'n dey's got, why don't dey jes' TAKE 'EM, an' not be talkin' about it?' Some on 'em came round me, an' asked why I didn't wear Bloomers. An' I told 'em I had Bloomers enough when I was in bondage. You see," she said, "dey used to weave what dey called nigger-cloth, an' each one of us got jes' sech a strip, an' had to wear it width-wise. Them that was short got along pretty well, but as for me"She gave an indescribably droll glance at her long limbs and then at us, and added,"Tell YOU, I had enough of Bloomers in them days." Sojourner then proceeded to give her views of the relative capacity of the sexes, in her own way. "S'pose a man's mind holds a quart, an' a woman's don't hold but a pint; ef her pint is FULL, it's as good as his quart." Sojourner was fond of singing an extraordinary lyric, commencing, "I'm on my way to Canada, That cold, but happy land; The dire effects of Slavery I can no longer stand. O righteous Father, Do look down on me, And help me on to Canada, Where colored folks are free!" The lyric ran on to state, that, when the fugitive crosses the Canada line, "The Queen comes down unto the shore, With arms extended wide, To welcome the poor fugitive Safe onto Freedom's side." In the truth thus set forth she seemed to have the most simple faith. But her chief delight was to talk of "glory," and to sing hymns whose burden was, "O glory, glory, glory, Won't you come along with me?" and when left to herself, she would often hum these with great delight, nodding her head. On one occasion, I remember her sitting at a window singing and fervently keeping time with her head, the little black Puck of a grandson meanwhile amusing himself with ornamenting her red-and- yellow turban with green dandelion-curls, which shook and trembled with her emotions, causing him perfect convulsions of delight. "Sojourner," said the Professor to her, one day, when he heard her singing, "you seem to be very sure about heaven." "Well, I be," she answered, triumphantly. "What makes you so sure there is any heaven?" "Well, 'cause I got such a hankerin' arter it in here," she said, giving a thump on her breast with her usual energy. There was at the time an invalid in the house, and Sojourner, on learning it, felt a mission to go and comfort her. It was curious to see the tall, gaunt, dusky figure stalk up to the bed with such an air of conscious authority, and take on herself the office of consoler with such a mixture of authority and tenderness. She talked as from above,and at the same time, if a pillow needed changing or any office to be rendered, she did it with a strength and handiness that inspired trust. One felt as if the dark, strange woman were quite able to take up the invalid in her bosom, and bear her as a lamb, both physically and spiritually. There was both power and sweetness in that great warm soul and that vigorous frame. At length, Sojourner, true to her name, departed. She had her mission elsewhere. Where now she is I know not; but she left deep memories behind her. To these recollections of my own I will add one more anecdote, related by Wendell Phillips. Speaking of the power of Rachel to move and bear down a whole audience by a few simple words, he said he never knew but one other human being that had that power, and that other was Sojourner Truth. He related a scene of which he was witness. It was at a crowded public meeting in Faneuil Hall, where Frederick Douglas was one of the chief speakers. Douglas had been describing the wrongs of the black race, and as he proceeded, he grew more and more excited, and finally ended by saying that they had no hope of justice from the whites, no possible hope except in their own right arms. It must come to blood; they must fight for themselves, and redeem themselves, or it would never be done. Sojourner was sitting, tall and dark, on the very front seat, facing the platform; and in the hush of deep feeling, after Douglas sat down, she spoke out in her deep, peculiar voice, heard all over the house, "Frederick, IS GOD DEAD?" The effect was perfectly electrical, and thrilled through the whole house, changing as by a flash the whole feeling of the audience. Not another word she said or needed to say; it was enough. It is with a sad feeling that one contemplates noble minds and bodies, nobly and grandly formed human beings, that have come to us cramped, scarred, maimed, out of the prison-house of bondage. One longs to know what such beings might have become, if suffered to unfold and expand under the kindly developing influences of education. It is the theory of some writers, that to the African is reserved, in the later and palmier days of the earth, the full and harmonious development of the religious element in man. The African seems to seize on the tropical fervor and luxuriance of Scripture imagery as something native; he appears to feel himself to be of the same blood with those old burning, simple souls, the patriarchs, prophets, and seers, whose impassioned words seem only grafted as foreign plants on the cooler stock of the Occidental mind. I cannot but think that Sojourner with the same culture might have spoken words as eloquent and undying as those of the African Saint Augustine or Tertullian. How grand and queenly a woman she might have been, with her wonderful physical vigor, her great heaving sea of emotion, her power of spiritual conception, her quick penetration, and her boundless energy! We might conceive an African type of woman so largely made and moulded, so much fuller in all the elements of life, physical and spiritual, that the dark hue of the skin should seem only to add an appropriate charm,as Milton says of his Penseroso, whom he imagines "Black, but such as in esteem Prince Memnon's sister might beseem, Or that starred Ethiop queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above The sea-nymph's." But though Sojourner Truth has passed away from among us as a wave of the sea, her memory still lives in one of the loftiest and most original works of modern art, the Libyan Sibyl, by Mr. Story, which attracted so much attention in the late World's Exhibition. Some years ago, when visiting Rome, I related Sojourner's history to Mr. Story at a breakfast at his house. Already had his mind begun to turn to Egypt in search of a type of art which should represent a larger and more vigorous development of nature than the cold elegance of Greek lines. His glorious Cleopatra was then in process of evolution, and his mind was working out the problem of her broadly developed nature, of all that slumbering weight and fulness of passion with which this statue seems charged, as a heavy thunder-cloud is charged with electricity. The history of Sojourner Truth worked in his mind and led him into the deeper recesses of the African nature,those unexplored depths of being and feeling, mighty and dark as the gigantic depths of tropical forests, mysterious as the hidden rivers and mines of that burning continent whose life-history is yet to be. A few days after, he told me that he had conceived the idea of a statue which he should call the Libyan Sibyl. Two years subsequently, I revisited Rome, and found the gorgeous Cleopatra finished, a thing to marvel at, as the creation of a new style of beauty, a new manner of art. Mr. Story requested me to come and repeat to him the history of Sojourner Truth, saying that the conception had never left him. I did so; and a day or two after, he showed me the clay model of the Libyan Sibyl. I have never seen the marble statue; but am told by those who have, that it was by far the most impressive work of art at the Exhibition. A notice of the two statues from the London "Athenaeum" must supply a description which I cannot give. "The Cleopatra and the Sibyl are seated, partly draped, with the characteristic Egyptian gown, that gathers about the torso and falls freely around the limbs; the first is covered to the bosom, the second bare to the hips. Queenly Cleopatra rests back against her chair in meditative ease, leaning her cheek against one hand, whose elbow the rail of the seat sustains; the other is outstretched upon her knee, nipping its forefinger upon the thumb thoughtfully, as though some firm, wilful purpose filled her brain, as it seems to set those luxurious features to a smile as if the whole woman 'would.' Upon her head is the coif, bearing in front the mystic uraeus, or twining basilisk of sovereignty, while from its sides depend the wide Egyptian lappels, or wings, that fall upon her shoulders. The Sibilla Libica has crossed her knees,an action universally held amongst the ancients as indicative of reticence or secrecy, and of power to bind. A secret-keeping looking dame she is, in the full-bloom proportions of ripe womanhood, wherein choosing to place his figure the sculptor has deftly gone between the disputed point whether these women were blooming and wise in youth, or deeply furrowed with age and burdened with the knowledge of centuries, as Virgil, Livy, and Gellius say. Good artistic example might be quoted on both sides. Her forward elbow is propped upon one knee; and to keep her secrets close, for this Libyan woman is the closest of all the Sibyls, she rests her shut mouth upon one closed palm, as if holding the African mystery deep in the brooding brain that looks out through mournful, warning eyes, seen under the wide shade of the strange horned (ammonite) crest, that bears the mystery of the Tetragrammaton upon its upturned front. Over her full bosom, mother of myriads as she was, hangs the same symbol. Her face has a Nubian cast, her hair wavy and plaited, as is meet." We hope to see the day when copies both of the Cleopatra and the Libyan Sibyl shall adorn the Capitol at Washington. SOJOURNER TRUTH, THE LIBYAN SIBYL by Harriet Beecher Stowe Atlantic Monthly 11 (April 1863): 473-481.
The Narrative Of Sojourner Truth, By Sojourner Truth. Read It Now For Free! (Hom
Free HTML EText. Read it online, page by page.
http://www.PageByPageBooks.com/Sojourner_Truth/The_Narrative_of_Sojourner_Truth/
National Women's Hall Of Fame - Women Of The Hall
Short biography and portrait from the National Women's Hall of Fame.
http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewone&id=158
Who Was Sojourner Truth?
Who was Sojourner Truth? Sojourner A Sojourner Truth statue will honorboth the woman and the larger vision which inspired her. This
http://www.noho.com/sojourner/whowas.html

Extractions: Who was Sojourner Truth? Sojourner Truth came to Northampton in 1843 to live at the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian community in Florence. Born a slave in upstate New York in approximately 1797, she labored for a succession of five masters until the Fourth of July, 1827, when slavery was finally abolished in New York State. Then Isabella - as she had been named at birth - became legally free. When the association disbanded in 1846, Truth remained in Northampton, moving for the first time into her own home, on Park Street in Florence, with a loan from Samuel Hill. Although Truth never learned to read or write, she dictated her memoirs to Olive Gilbert and they were published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave After the Civil War, she set out on a final crusade to gain support for her dream of a land distribution program for former slaves - an idea which, despite her lobbying, Congress refused to enact. Finally she returned to her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, where, surrounded by her family and friends, she died in 1883. Return to Home Why Erect a Statue in Her Memory?
MSN Learning & Research - System Difficulties
Article from Encarta Encyclopedia provides a brief overview of Truth's life.
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?ti=047B3000
About Sojourner Truth | Sojourner Truth Biography
(compare prices); Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner. (compare prices);Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, Dover Thrift Editions.
http://womenshistory.about.com/library/bio/bltruth.htm

Extractions: Portrait adapted from an image courtesy of the Library of Congress 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.

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