{"id":4,"date":"2019-12-12T21:16:20","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T21:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/?page_id=4"},"modified":"2019-12-17T18:26:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T18:26:15","slug":"sojourner-truth","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/sojourner-truth\/","title":{"rendered":"Sojourner Truth"},"content":{"rendered":"

About Sojourner Truth<\/h2>\n

Sojourner Truth challenged many of the long-held beliefs that white Americans held about slaves at her time. Truth was not a Southerner; she had been born and raised in New York to a Dutch slave-owning family. Truth was extremely religious and attributed many of her beliefs to the Christian God. She was a tall figure that demanded respect and captured the attention of others everywhere she went. And most importantly: Sojourner Truth was a woman – a woman and an ex-slave, two identities that white America had yet to realize could coincide in one being.\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

Much of Truth\u2019s story was manipulated and utilized by white women for their benefit \u2013 namely Harriet Beecher Stowe and Frances Dana Gage. Both Stowe’s and Gage\u2019s accounts of Truth are sensationalized retellings meant to boost the two white women\u2019s status as rivaling writers. It is widely accepted that Sojourner Truth\u2019s nearly immortalized \u201cAin\u2019t I A Woman\u201d speech was most likely a fabrication conjured by Gage to sell her papers. Still, Sojourner Truth became a widely known public speaker. She toured the country giving speeches and addresses at different women\u2019s rights and suffragist conventions. Truth regained control over her own voice and story, despite having been misrepresented by Stowe and Gage in the past.<\/p>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\tIsabella Baumfree is Born\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tSojourner Truth is Born\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tTruth speaks at the first ever National Women\u2019s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tTruth publishes her memoirs, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tTruth speaks at the Women\u2019s Rights Convention in Akron Ohio\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tHarriet Beecher Stowe publishes \u201cSojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl\u201d\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tFrances Dana Gage publishes her account of Sojourner Truth\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\t
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\n\t\t\tSojourner Truth passes away.\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n
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Isabella Baumfree is Born<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Sojourner Truth is Born<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Truth speaks at the first ever National Women\u2019s Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Truth publishes her memoirs, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Truth speaks at the Women\u2019s Rights Convention in Akron Ohio<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes \u201cSojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl\u201d<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Frances Dana Gage publishes her account of Sojourner Truth<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Sojourner Truth passes away.<\/h2>\n\t\t\t
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Truth criticized the feminist suffragist movement for pushing ideals of white women\u2019s femininity while criticizing the abolitionist movement for heralding black men\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n

“At a time when most Americans thought of slaves as male and women as white, Truth embodied a fact that is still repeating: among the blacks are women; among the women, there are blacks.” –\u00a0Nell Irving Painter<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She spoke vehemently for black women\u2019s rights, arguing that black rights were not for black men, and women\u2019s rights were not for white women. She combined both abolitionist and suffragist rhetoric to advocate for black women\u2019s freedom and autonomy. Truth argued that black women were just as capable as men. As a slave, she had \u201cplowed and planted and gathered into barns\u201d (Painter 167) just as men had. As a woman, she had been married and born thirteen children. She was an ex-slave, a wife, and a mother all at the same time and because of these simultaneous accomplishments she demanded as much respect as any black man or white woman. Truth maintained a lot of influence in these movements, all while criticizing each movment’s shortcomings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About Sojourner Truth Sojourner Truth challenged many of the long-held beliefs that white Americans held about slaves at her time. Truth was not a Southerner; she had been born and raised in New York to a Dutch slave-owning family. Truth was extremely religious and attributed many of her beliefs to the Christian God. She was … Continue reading “Sojourner Truth passes away.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/africana-studies-1109-fall-2019-gender-equity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}