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The Women’s Tribune & Sojourner Truth… Still learning…

In The Women’s Tribune I have seen many important names listed within news columns, announcements, tributes and quotes.  Susan B. Anthony, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe are mentioned as the companions they were to the community persisting in the struggle for equality.  This week I came across an announcement concerning Clara Barton and a memorial to Sojourner Truth [1].  And, as I have helped serve at a soup kitchen named in her honor, it was that latter name that held my attention.

The runaway slave that fought for freedom and credited her new name to “God speakin'” to her, passionately preached on behalf of equality for all.  Unlike Frederick Douglass, she did not think that suffrage for women [2] should be a separate issue from suffrage for black men, that distinctions were not legitimate, but contrived from societal norms.  Her most famous words challenged those mannerly excuses.

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody helps me any best place. And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm. I have plowed, I have planted, and I have gathered into barns. And no man could head me. And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as man—when I could get it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne children and seen most of them sold into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?”

In her 110 years of life, she challenged inequality, clothed refugees, addressed conventions of ministers, spoke with a president, and always urged others to examine their lives, to see the magnitude of opportunity contained in the privilege of life.  Sojourner Truth [1] attended many rallies and conventions, and her wise words were marveled at, noted and recorded.  To the women’s movement she was an encouragement and inspiration.

Now here, now there, this wonderful woman was to be found doing good, giving her unfortunate people help.  Strengthening the courage of her white sisters, aiding them in so many ways that it brings back to us her words, “I’m a watchin’, I’m sittin’ among you to watch; and every once and awhile I will come out and tell you what time of the night it is.”