Women's History Month Salutes Sojourner Truth
Honey did you know her?
Being that it is Women’s History
Month I went researching who made impact on women’s life. I found this woman by
the name of Isabella Baumfree
.
Reading about how she was a slave
at a young age, sold to different slave owners four times before she fell in
love with Robert. She and he were prohibited from seeing each other because Bell’s
owner didn’t want his slaves to have children with slaves he didn’t own. He
wouldn’t have rights to those children to be sold. Robert would continue sneaking
to see her until he was savagely beat and she never saw him again. She later
married an older slave name Thomas and she had five children by him. There are
conflicting stories that the older slave that she married wasn’t the father to
one child. Her life hasn’t even reached where we know her yet but in such a
short time of reading about her early years I am in awe because she endured so
much.
I
can’t imagine as a child being sold into slavery or to be separated from my
parents especially being as close as we were.
I knew by high school I had met the love of my life to be forbidden
because we belonged to different slave owners and they would have the rights to
our kids seems crazy now. We’re are blessed to never have to experience it
because of this woman named Isabella.
The
next chapter in her life is a cliff hanger. She is promised her freedom if she
is faithful and a good girl. The owner who is also believed to be the father of
one of her children changes his mind. She spins 100 pounds of wool and feels
that has obliged the agreement. She runs away with her youngest child Sophia
leaving behind her husband and the remaining children. This must be the most painful experience a
mother could ever go through. There was a destiny over her life. A family took
her and her daughter in and the family paid the reminder of what was owed to
the old slave master which was 20.00 for her services. This was the same year
of the Emancipation Act that she was now a freed slaved. She learned that her five-year-old
son was sold illegally and took the old slaveowner to court and sued him. She
won!!! She got her son back. First African American woman to take a white man
to court and win!
Here
is where I feel for her she is so trusting. She became a devout Christian and
meets others with the same belief. She
is introduced to Elijah Pierson, an Christian Evangelist and becomes his housekeeper.
She then leaves and becomes a
housekeeper for Robert Matthews and Elijah Pierson is killed by poisoning. She and Robert Matthews are accused of
stealing and murder. She hires a lawyer and is acquitted.
In
1843 she changed her name Sojourner Truth. On a religious quest she went from
Methodist to Adventist and then distanced herself because Jesus didn’t appear
as promised. Shortly after in 1844 she joined the Northampton Education and
Industry. This group supported women’s rights, religious tolerance and pacifism.
In
1850 she was dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert and William Lloyd
Garrison privately published her book:
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern
Slave. She purchased a home in Northampton for $300.00.
She spoke at the National Women’s Rights Convention. Within four years she could
pay off the mortgage from royalties of from her book and a portrait.
This resonated
within me on many levels my Mother Reverend Betty L. Saunders was a maid in
Waterbury Connecticut during the 1960’s and was a devout Pentecostal
missionary. Working many different jobs,
it was during one that she got insured and sued. She won and the money was used
to purchase a home directly across the man she was a maid for in the 70’s. Growing up in an all-white affluent
neighborhood wasn’t always easy. She also had a calling on her life that she
was called to preach and within the religion she found obstacles because she
was remarried she couldn’t be ordained. She had to leave the religion she knew
and became an ordained Baptist minister. Her love of helping the poor and those in need
she started a group home for four mentally challenged women, fed the needy, and
opened her door to those in crisis.
As a writer I found
what inspires myself is world news, life experiences, and my mother. If it had
not been for Sojourner Truth there would not be African American Female
Writers. She paved the way for generations to follow. Not knowing she has
written a speech called “Ain’t I A Woman” I had written a poem in my first book
called “I Am A Woman” after seeing the pictures depicted during the Civil
Rights Movement with African American men holding signs “I Am A Man”. She spoke for women all women especially
black women. She wanted all to have rights.
Miss Sojourner Truth I salute you!
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