August 18, 2020 • 18 mins
Among the giants of American history, Sojourner Truth stands out. After escaping slavery, she drew huge crowds as a speaker, advocating on behalf of abolition and women’s rights. Host Kim Azzarelli and American historian Dr. Daina Ramey Berry celebrate the voice and work of Sojourner Truth.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I have been forty years of slave and forty years free,
and would be here forty years more to have equal
rights for all, even among the giants of American history.
Sojournal Truth stands out for what she did, what she said,
and what she overcame. Despite being born a slave in
(00:22):
s she literally walked her way to freedom, and despite
being unable to read or write, she was an eloquent
and powerful orator, able to draw crowds as large as
four thousand people. And what did you speak about? She
called for an end to slavery. She advocated for the
rights of women. Hers was a voice that had to
(00:43):
be heard. I'm Kim Azzarelli, and this is Seneca's one
hundred Women to Hear. We're bringing you a hundred of
the world's most inspiring and history making women. You need
to hear, women of the past, the present, and women
who are right now designing our future. For our inaugural episode,
we're focusing on Sir Journal Truth, and we're speaking today
with Dr Dinah Raymy Berry, an expert on gender, slavery,
(01:06):
and black women's history in the United States. Dr Barry
is an award winning author and professor of American history
at the University of Texas, Austin. She's also a co
producer of the multimedia series Making History Hers about women's
contributions to the United States. We've asked her to talk
to us today about the life and accomplishments of Sojourner Truth.
(01:27):
Listen to our conversation with Dr Barry and discover why
Sir Journal Truth is one of Seneca's one hundred Women
to hear. Dr Barry, thanks so much for joining us. Oh,
thank you for having me, but we are so excited
to speak with you, in particular about this incredible woman's
from Journal Truths and to hear your insights on her
life and accomplishments. I want to start with a question
(01:50):
about your first introduction to her. Do you remember when
you first learned of her story? How old were you
and what were your first thoughts. I think I first
heard her name my mother as a young girl. Um,
I probably was around eight or nine years old, and
I just remember my mom telling me that there were
wonderful black women who looked like me, who had done
(02:11):
amazing things and who fought for their rights as women
and as African Americans. But I don't think my official
learning of her in terms of an academic setting. Came
into college and that was when I decided to study
the history of slavery in the history of enslaved people.
And in graduate school I continued that work studying enslave women,
(02:32):
and I read her narrative and that was really when
I learned the most about her, and from two other
African American historians, Mail Painter Neil Urban Painter and Margaret
Washington both did biographies on Sojournal Truth and those biographies
taught me even more about her life. So what came
(02:52):
you share with us about her journey from birth to emancipation,
her incredible journey really and her incredible genius. Can we
start with her own background, her mother, her siblings, her father,
where she grew up, and how she lived. Yeah? Sure,
so we think she was born around seventeen and her
name at birth was Isabelle Bomfree and she was the
(03:14):
youngest child of about ten or twelve siblings. Her parents
were Elizabeth and James Bamfree, and they tried everything they
could to keep their family together. But because they were
born in Ulster County, New York, um this was an
Afro Dutch community. She grew up speaking low Dutch language,
and she grew up watching her mother and father fight
(03:37):
for the rights for their kids and their family to
stay together because many of her siblings were taken and
sold into slavery. And one of the things I think,
one of her first lessons from what we understand about
her life, is that her parents wanted her to remember
her brothers and sisters that were taken away. So her
mother would constantly talk about them and tell them stories,
(03:59):
and they make sure that Isabelle and her siblings would
remember those that had been taken from the family. Now,
I think any enslaved person, most enslaved people had been
sold or were sold multiple times, and I think people
don't necessarily understand that she was sold around five times.
Her first sale was at age nine. I always like,
(04:21):
you know, people to think about that, what does that mean?
Nine years old? Right and taken from memore, you know,
And that just that just goes to show that, like
enslaved people had to adapt and readapt to being put
in different um family and working situations, situations of exploitation,
and those change, those those those situations changed every time
(04:43):
there was a change in their enslavers family. So if
there was a death of one of their enslavers, or
someone was married, or they had a debt that they
couldn't pay. Enslaved people were sold. And she even herself
being a mother while enslavery. How do you think that
changed her? Well, I think, you know, just thinking about
the lessons that she learned from her own mother and um,
(05:03):
just growing up with a place where there was a
strong sense of family. She fell in love first with
a man named Robert, but because of the laws of slavery,
the two enslavers that were owned, they were they had
different owners and they would not allow them to marry.
They denied their request to be married, so she ended
up later while she was enslaved, she married a man
by the name of Thomas, and we think she gave
(05:25):
birth to about five children. UM. One of them we
think was a son who died in infancy. But she
had a daughter named Diana, a son named Peter, and
two other daughters named Elizabeth and Sophia. And one of
the things that she did, because she was constantly being
separated from her own family, UM, one of her enslavers
(05:46):
promised her that they would be given she would be
given her freedom. And before the New York Law was
passed in the Manumission Act, and she didn't believe that
he would. So she literally, and she says this, she
walked into freedom. She took little Sophia in her arms
and left slavery at the end of eighteen six and
walked to freedom. She had to leave her other children behind,
(06:09):
but she went away and freed herself. And after she
was freed, she fought to have her son, Peter returned
to her. Yes, and he had been sold illegally. Tell
me about the significance of this case. Well, this was
an eight so a couple of years after she had
self emancipated, Peter was around six years old and she
got word that he had been illegally sold into slavery
(06:31):
in Alabama. And that was something that obviously upset any
mother and upset her greatly. So she went to the court.
She went to New York and she went to the
court and she tried to fight for his um for
his return. What's amazing about that is for her to
go at this time, at at an age, you know,
(06:51):
at her age, um looking for her son who was,
you know, so far away in Alabama. That was such
a bold move. And you know, she had to get
the court to listen to her. They sort of laughed,
some of them didn't take her seriously, but she kept going.
She walked miles, she raised money, she found other people
to support her to raise money to then try to
(07:12):
find a way to bring him back. And she won
and was able to have Peter returned to her, which
was amazing. As you said earlier, she was a true advocate.
I mean, so she was involved in in the courts
even though she wasn't reading or writing. She was a
very profound orator and advocate. How did this come to be?
It was a god given talent, I mean, she says.
And one of the things that I think is most
(07:33):
significant about her, as much of her activism was led
by an internal belief system. She was very much influenced
by the second grade awakening um she then began by
the time by the time she was around forty six
years of age in eighteen forty three, she named herself
Sojournal Truth and believed that it was a calling for
(07:54):
her to then go lead on a public speaking tour
um and share the horrors of slave every with whatever
audience would listen. And we learned later that she followed
the Bible, um and and different scriptures that she would share.
And she spoke in front of audiences, mixed audiences as
large as four thousand individual individuals, and sometimes they had
(08:16):
to create overflow spaces the tent meetings where they were outdoors.
So it was really amazing to think about a black woman,
former enslave, woman who is now free, who fights to
get possession of her children back to gain possession of
her children, and then to speak about the horrors of
slavery and travel wherever she felt God led her to
fight for these rights. Senecas one hundred women to hear,
(08:40):
will be back after this short break. We are fortunate
to have a few relics from so general truth life
images of her, her narrative, as well as speeches. On
May nine of eighteen sixty seven, she gave a speech
(09:00):
at the first annual meeting of the American Equal Rights Association.
This was held at the Church of the Puritans in
New York City, and she opened her remarks with the following,
my friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but
I don't know how you will feel when I get through.
I come from another field, the country of the slave.
(09:22):
They have got their liberty. So much good luck to
have slavery partially destroyed, not entirely. I wanted root and
branch destroyed. Then we will all be free. Indeed, at
the close of her remarks, she made the following statement,
I am above eighty years old, and it is about
time for me to be going. I have been forty
(09:44):
years a slave and forty years free, and would be
here forty years more to have equal rights for all.
I suppose I am kept here because something remains for
me to do. I suppose I am yet help to
break the chain. What have you learned about her through
(10:06):
her memoirs? Oh, my gosh, so much. One thing that
stood out to me just personally, and this may not
be anything that jumps out of anyone else, but the
way she talked about her parents, because I wanted to
know her foundation. I wanted to know who she was
as a young girl, as a woman. How how was
she raised? Um, I know that enslave life is so
fraught with separation, but the fact that her parents had
(10:29):
such a strong influence on her, even though she was
taken away at age nine. So she talked about her
parents as they aged and how as she after she escaped,
she wanted to you know, check on them and make
sure they were okay. Um, it's the struggle she had
with when she saw about her father trying to care
for her mother, and just some of the things about
their old age and how enslaved people were treated in
(10:50):
the elderly years. It's something that we don't know much about.
And I really, for me, was I sort of honed
in on those those parts of the story. Um. The
other parts that I liked was just learning about her
spirituality and just this is a woman of God, and
learning about how she was so bold. I mean she then,
you know, after she leaves New York, she moved to Florence, Massachusetts,
(11:13):
and joins the National Association of Education and Industry, which
was a social justice organization. And then there she continued speaking. Um.
So she just would travel wherever she felt she was led,
and she felt she experienced violence people tried to you know,
her life was obviously threatened, but she still felt strongly
about social justice issues, including abolition of the abolition of slavery,
(11:37):
and the rights of women. Can we talk about her
relationship to the white suffrage movement. Yes, so, as you know,
in eighty eight the that the Seneca Falls Convention, there
were no women of color present. Um, there were I
think two hundred people at that first convention, and there
were about forty men, including Frederick Douglas. UM, and they
(11:58):
and Fredick Douglas was one of the signers the Declaration
of Sentiments. But we know we first heard a lot
about Sojourner Truth. Many college classes talk about her in
this way about the eighteen fifty one Ohio Women's Rights Convention,
and that was where it's been reported that she gave
this remarkable speech. Um, that was powerful. People say that
(12:18):
she used quote unquote strong and truthful tones. But it
was reported twelve years after she made this speech. And
this is the aren't I a woman's speech or a
iron woman's speech? You've probably heard about it, yes, most
people have. But but the way it was reported twelve
years afterwards by Francis Gauge, who was also a suffragist.
Francis Gage said, twelve years later she she recanted or
(12:41):
recalled the speech that Sojourner Truth gave, and she said
the way she reported was that such that she used
broken English and it was like a Southern dialect, and
so journal Truth would not have used some of the
language that's in there. She she spoke low Dutch, not
Southern dialect, and English the Southern broken othern dialect. So
there has been questions about the accuracy of that speech.
(13:04):
I can't let it know that, actually, yeah, But and
and the thing is, it's some people have swept it
on the rug because they'll they'll have little girls like
reciting that speech. And there's no way that So Jenner
truth would have said it the way it was said.
But we do know regardless of how she said it,
we do know that it was powerful. We know that
it was impactful. We know that people were there were
(13:25):
moved by what she said. And it was very clear
that she argued for equal rights for black women in
a space that was heavily dominated obviously by whites. And
who was her audience for that, Who was she able
to influence? She was able to influence the white women
that were there. But she ended up later sort of
breaking with white women like um Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
(13:47):
Susan B. Anthony because she they didn't support Stanton in
particularly didn't support universal male suffrage. Stanton made it a
statement about how she didn't want to have colored men
have the right to vote before women, and that was
something that the general Truth disagree with. She felt like
she would be okay with black men getting the right
to vote. She still fought for women's suffrage, but she
(14:10):
had a problem and they parted ways after the fifteenth Amendment.
They parted ways after that and after this though Sogeria
Truth continued to fight UM. She worked during the Civil
War too. She was also doing political work. During the
Civil War. She wanted to make sure that black soldiers
were included in the Union Army. She wanted to make
sure they were able to volunteer and um and It
(14:31):
were permitted to join. She also brought them food and
clothing during the war. Many people don't know that about her.
And then afterwards after the Civil War, she fought to
help support the resettlement of freed slaves UM and she
wanted them to find a space for land. In eighteen
seventy nine, there was an exodus to Kansas where they
worked hard to try to resettle and live in a
(14:52):
space of freedom. When you really think of her humanity,
she overcame so many insurmountable challenges and she spoke truth
when others it in or couldn't and it could have
cost her her life. What is it that we should
take away from her, well, I think one is that
she spoke about things that were dear to her heart.
She spoke about injustice, she spoke against injustice. She spoke
(15:15):
for the right of an equality of all men and
all men and women, black and white. And she was
willing to be flexible and work within these movements, but
she was very strong about saying that if black women
and women in particular don't receive the right to vote,
then they'll be enslaved by men and be oppressed by women.
(15:36):
So she really was an advocate to make sure that
black women weren't left out of this equation. So I
think the takeaway is just equality, um and the right
to vote, and that's really important today as we now
have the right to vote. I think that's something that
you see someone likes the Journal Truth in the nineteenth
century of formally enslaved women who self liberated and had
(15:59):
our family say Parade still fought for equality for all.
I want to thank Dr Barry for joining us and
for sharing her insights on this extraordinary woman. Sojournal Truth
as we think about the hundred anniversary of women getting
the vote, we have to remember that it would take
another forty five years for all women to gain full
(16:19):
access to that right through the Voting Rights Act of
nineteen Sojournal truths entire life and work was dedicated to
ensuring all women and men would have access to true equality.
And in spite of the tremendous injustices and incredible hardships
she endured, she never wavered in her fight for equality
and human rights for all. In fact, it could be
(16:40):
said that her life is the very definition of courage.
Courage to speak out against wrongs, courage to speak up,
whether in the public square or in the courts, even
at the risk of her own life. And this courage
stemmed from a strong inner belief system, an unwavering, deep
sense of purpose that propelled her forward. Bold and eloquent,
gifted orator, a true genius, so Journal Truth was able
(17:03):
to change the course of history. Her story shows us
that when women's voices are heard, the progress that one
seemed impossible is in fact possible. Tune in tomorrow to
hear from our next featured woman, Megan, the Duchess of Sussex,
and discover why she's one of our one hundred Women
to Hear. For more great listens from Seneca Women, check
(17:24):
out our other podcasts. Every weekday join us for a
brief take on all the good that's happening in the
world on Seneca's Here's Something Good, and every Thursday, listen
to inspiring and shared learnings from legendary women entrepreneurs Unmade
by Women. If you want to support organizations making a
difference for women and girls, you can donate to the
Women's Economic Future Fund. Learn more on our website at
(17:46):
Seneca Women dot com. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear
is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and
I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner p and
special thanks to our I Heart producers, supervising producer Molly
Socha and supervising producer Matt Stillo. If you like what
you heard on the show, rate and review it on
Apple Podcasts, we hope you'll join us for our next
(18:07):
episode of one hundred Women to Hear, where we can
all listen, learn and get inspired. Have a great day.
I have been forty years of slave and forty years free,
and would be here forty years more to have equal
rights for all, even among the giants of American history.
Sojournal Truth stands out for what she did, what she said,
and what she overcame. Despite being born a slave in
(00:22):
s she literally walked her way to freedom, and despite
being unable to read or write, she was an eloquent
and powerful orator, able to draw crowds as large as
four thousand people. And what did you speak about? She
called for an end to slavery. She advocated for the
rights of women. Hers was a voice that had to
(00:43):
be heard. I'm Kim Azzarelli, and this is Seneca's one
hundred Women to Hear. We're bringing you a hundred of
the world's most inspiring and history making women. You need
to hear, women of the past, the present, and women
who are right now designing our future. For our inaugural episode,
we're focusing on Sir Journal Truth, and we're speaking today
with Dr Dinah Raymy Berry, an expert on gender, slavery,
(01:06):
and black women's history in the United States. Dr Barry
is an award winning author and professor of American history
at the University of Texas, Austin. She's also a co
producer of the multimedia series Making History Hers about women's
contributions to the United States. We've asked her to talk
to us today about the life and accomplishments of Sojourner Truth.
(01:27):
Listen to our conversation with Dr Barry and discover why
Sir Journal Truth is one of Seneca's one hundred Women
to hear. Dr Barry, thanks so much for joining us. Oh,
thank you for having me, but we are so excited
to speak with you, in particular about this incredible woman's
from Journal Truths and to hear your insights on her
life and accomplishments. I want to start with a question
(01:50):
about your first introduction to her. Do you remember when
you first learned of her story? How old were you
and what were your first thoughts. I think I first
heard her name my mother as a young girl. Um,
I probably was around eight or nine years old, and
I just remember my mom telling me that there were
wonderful black women who looked like me, who had done
(02:11):
amazing things and who fought for their rights as women
and as African Americans. But I don't think my official
learning of her in terms of an academic setting. Came
into college and that was when I decided to study
the history of slavery in the history of enslaved people.
And in graduate school I continued that work studying enslave women,
(02:32):
and I read her narrative and that was really when
I learned the most about her, and from two other
African American historians, Mail Painter Neil Urban Painter and Margaret
Washington both did biographies on Sojournal Truth and those biographies
taught me even more about her life. So what came
(02:52):
you share with us about her journey from birth to emancipation,
her incredible journey really and her incredible genius. Can we
start with her own background, her mother, her siblings, her father,
where she grew up, and how she lived. Yeah? Sure,
so we think she was born around seventeen and her
name at birth was Isabelle Bomfree and she was the
(03:14):
youngest child of about ten or twelve siblings. Her parents
were Elizabeth and James Bamfree, and they tried everything they
could to keep their family together. But because they were
born in Ulster County, New York, um this was an
Afro Dutch community. She grew up speaking low Dutch language,
and she grew up watching her mother and father fight
(03:37):
for the rights for their kids and their family to
stay together because many of her siblings were taken and
sold into slavery. And one of the things I think,
one of her first lessons from what we understand about
her life, is that her parents wanted her to remember
her brothers and sisters that were taken away. So her
mother would constantly talk about them and tell them stories,
(03:59):
and they make sure that Isabelle and her siblings would
remember those that had been taken from the family. Now,
I think any enslaved person, most enslaved people had been
sold or were sold multiple times, and I think people
don't necessarily understand that she was sold around five times.
Her first sale was at age nine. I always like,
(04:21):
you know, people to think about that, what does that mean?
Nine years old? Right and taken from memore, you know,
And that just that just goes to show that, like
enslaved people had to adapt and readapt to being put
in different um family and working situations, situations of exploitation,
and those change, those those those situations changed every time
(04:43):
there was a change in their enslavers family. So if
there was a death of one of their enslavers, or
someone was married, or they had a debt that they
couldn't pay. Enslaved people were sold. And she even herself
being a mother while enslavery. How do you think that
changed her? Well, I think, you know, just thinking about
the lessons that she learned from her own mother and um,
(05:03):
just growing up with a place where there was a
strong sense of family. She fell in love first with
a man named Robert, but because of the laws of slavery,
the two enslavers that were owned, they were they had
different owners and they would not allow them to marry.
They denied their request to be married, so she ended
up later while she was enslaved, she married a man
by the name of Thomas, and we think she gave
(05:25):
birth to about five children. UM. One of them we
think was a son who died in infancy. But she
had a daughter named Diana, a son named Peter, and
two other daughters named Elizabeth and Sophia. And one of
the things that she did, because she was constantly being
separated from her own family, UM, one of her enslavers
(05:46):
promised her that they would be given she would be
given her freedom. And before the New York Law was
passed in the Manumission Act, and she didn't believe that
he would. So she literally, and she says this, she
walked into freedom. She took little Sophia in her arms
and left slavery at the end of eighteen six and
walked to freedom. She had to leave her other children behind,
(06:09):
but she went away and freed herself. And after she
was freed, she fought to have her son, Peter returned
to her. Yes, and he had been sold illegally. Tell
me about the significance of this case. Well, this was
an eight so a couple of years after she had
self emancipated, Peter was around six years old and she
got word that he had been illegally sold into slavery
(06:31):
in Alabama. And that was something that obviously upset any
mother and upset her greatly. So she went to the court.
She went to New York and she went to the
court and she tried to fight for his um for
his return. What's amazing about that is for her to
go at this time, at at an age, you know,
(06:51):
at her age, um looking for her son who was,
you know, so far away in Alabama. That was such
a bold move. And you know, she had to get
the court to listen to her. They sort of laughed,
some of them didn't take her seriously, but she kept going.
She walked miles, she raised money, she found other people
to support her to raise money to then try to
(07:12):
find a way to bring him back. And she won
and was able to have Peter returned to her, which
was amazing. As you said earlier, she was a true advocate.
I mean, so she was involved in in the courts
even though she wasn't reading or writing. She was a
very profound orator and advocate. How did this come to be?
It was a god given talent, I mean, she says.
And one of the things that I think is most
(07:33):
significant about her, as much of her activism was led
by an internal belief system. She was very much influenced
by the second grade awakening um she then began by
the time by the time she was around forty six
years of age in eighteen forty three, she named herself
Sojournal Truth and believed that it was a calling for
(07:54):
her to then go lead on a public speaking tour
um and share the horrors of slave every with whatever
audience would listen. And we learned later that she followed
the Bible, um and and different scriptures that she would share.
And she spoke in front of audiences, mixed audiences as
large as four thousand individual individuals, and sometimes they had
(08:16):
to create overflow spaces the tent meetings where they were outdoors.
So it was really amazing to think about a black woman,
former enslave, woman who is now free, who fights to
get possession of her children back to gain possession of
her children, and then to speak about the horrors of
slavery and travel wherever she felt God led her to
fight for these rights. Senecas one hundred women to hear,
(08:40):
will be back after this short break. We are fortunate
to have a few relics from so general truth life
images of her, her narrative, as well as speeches. On
May nine of eighteen sixty seven, she gave a speech
(09:00):
at the first annual meeting of the American Equal Rights Association.
This was held at the Church of the Puritans in
New York City, and she opened her remarks with the following,
my friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but
I don't know how you will feel when I get through.
I come from another field, the country of the slave.
(09:22):
They have got their liberty. So much good luck to
have slavery partially destroyed, not entirely. I wanted root and
branch destroyed. Then we will all be free. Indeed, at
the close of her remarks, she made the following statement,
I am above eighty years old, and it is about
time for me to be going. I have been forty
(09:44):
years a slave and forty years free, and would be
here forty years more to have equal rights for all.
I suppose I am kept here because something remains for
me to do. I suppose I am yet help to
break the chain. What have you learned about her through
(10:06):
her memoirs? Oh, my gosh, so much. One thing that
stood out to me just personally, and this may not
be anything that jumps out of anyone else, but the
way she talked about her parents, because I wanted to
know her foundation. I wanted to know who she was
as a young girl, as a woman. How how was
she raised? Um, I know that enslave life is so
fraught with separation, but the fact that her parents had
(10:29):
such a strong influence on her, even though she was
taken away at age nine. So she talked about her
parents as they aged and how as she after she escaped,
she wanted to you know, check on them and make
sure they were okay. Um, it's the struggle she had
with when she saw about her father trying to care
for her mother, and just some of the things about
their old age and how enslaved people were treated in
(10:50):
the elderly years. It's something that we don't know much about.
And I really, for me, was I sort of honed
in on those those parts of the story. Um. The
other parts that I liked was just learning about her
spirituality and just this is a woman of God, and
learning about how she was so bold. I mean she then,
you know, after she leaves New York, she moved to Florence, Massachusetts,
(11:13):
and joins the National Association of Education and Industry, which
was a social justice organization. And then there she continued speaking. Um.
So she just would travel wherever she felt she was led,
and she felt she experienced violence people tried to you know,
her life was obviously threatened, but she still felt strongly
about social justice issues, including abolition of the abolition of slavery,
(11:37):
and the rights of women. Can we talk about her
relationship to the white suffrage movement. Yes, so, as you know,
in eighty eight the that the Seneca Falls Convention, there
were no women of color present. Um, there were I
think two hundred people at that first convention, and there
were about forty men, including Frederick Douglas. UM, and they
(11:58):
and Fredick Douglas was one of the signers the Declaration
of Sentiments. But we know we first heard a lot
about Sojourner Truth. Many college classes talk about her in
this way about the eighteen fifty one Ohio Women's Rights Convention,
and that was where it's been reported that she gave
this remarkable speech. Um, that was powerful. People say that
(12:18):
she used quote unquote strong and truthful tones. But it
was reported twelve years after she made this speech. And
this is the aren't I a woman's speech or a
iron woman's speech? You've probably heard about it, yes, most
people have. But but the way it was reported twelve
years afterwards by Francis Gauge, who was also a suffragist.
Francis Gage said, twelve years later she she recanted or
(12:41):
recalled the speech that Sojourner Truth gave, and she said
the way she reported was that such that she used
broken English and it was like a Southern dialect, and
so journal Truth would not have used some of the
language that's in there. She she spoke low Dutch, not
Southern dialect, and English the Southern broken othern dialect. So
there has been questions about the accuracy of that speech.
(13:04):
I can't let it know that, actually, yeah, But and
and the thing is, it's some people have swept it
on the rug because they'll they'll have little girls like
reciting that speech. And there's no way that So Jenner
truth would have said it the way it was said.
But we do know regardless of how she said it,
we do know that it was powerful. We know that
it was impactful. We know that people were there were
(13:25):
moved by what she said. And it was very clear
that she argued for equal rights for black women in
a space that was heavily dominated obviously by whites. And
who was her audience for that, Who was she able
to influence? She was able to influence the white women
that were there. But she ended up later sort of
breaking with white women like um Elizabeth Katie Stanton and
(13:47):
Susan B. Anthony because she they didn't support Stanton in
particularly didn't support universal male suffrage. Stanton made it a
statement about how she didn't want to have colored men
have the right to vote before women, and that was
something that the general Truth disagree with. She felt like
she would be okay with black men getting the right
to vote. She still fought for women's suffrage, but she
(14:10):
had a problem and they parted ways after the fifteenth Amendment.
They parted ways after that and after this though Sogeria
Truth continued to fight UM. She worked during the Civil
War too. She was also doing political work. During the
Civil War. She wanted to make sure that black soldiers
were included in the Union Army. She wanted to make
sure they were able to volunteer and um and It
(14:31):
were permitted to join. She also brought them food and
clothing during the war. Many people don't know that about her.
And then afterwards after the Civil War, she fought to
help support the resettlement of freed slaves UM and she
wanted them to find a space for land. In eighteen
seventy nine, there was an exodus to Kansas where they
worked hard to try to resettle and live in a
(14:52):
space of freedom. When you really think of her humanity,
she overcame so many insurmountable challenges and she spoke truth
when others it in or couldn't and it could have
cost her her life. What is it that we should
take away from her, well, I think one is that
she spoke about things that were dear to her heart.
She spoke about injustice, she spoke against injustice. She spoke
(15:15):
for the right of an equality of all men and
all men and women, black and white. And she was
willing to be flexible and work within these movements, but
she was very strong about saying that if black women
and women in particular don't receive the right to vote,
then they'll be enslaved by men and be oppressed by women.
(15:36):
So she really was an advocate to make sure that
black women weren't left out of this equation. So I
think the takeaway is just equality, um and the right
to vote, and that's really important today as we now
have the right to vote. I think that's something that
you see someone likes the Journal Truth in the nineteenth
century of formally enslaved women who self liberated and had
(15:59):
our family say Parade still fought for equality for all.
I want to thank Dr Barry for joining us and
for sharing her insights on this extraordinary woman. Sojournal Truth
as we think about the hundred anniversary of women getting
the vote, we have to remember that it would take
another forty five years for all women to gain full
(16:19):
access to that right through the Voting Rights Act of
nineteen Sojournal truths entire life and work was dedicated to
ensuring all women and men would have access to true equality.
And in spite of the tremendous injustices and incredible hardships
she endured, she never wavered in her fight for equality
and human rights for all. In fact, it could be
(16:40):
said that her life is the very definition of courage.
Courage to speak out against wrongs, courage to speak up,
whether in the public square or in the courts, even
at the risk of her own life. And this courage
stemmed from a strong inner belief system, an unwavering, deep
sense of purpose that propelled her forward. Bold and eloquent,
gifted orator, a true genius, so Journal Truth was able
(17:03):
to change the course of history. Her story shows us
that when women's voices are heard, the progress that one
seemed impossible is in fact possible. Tune in tomorrow to
hear from our next featured woman, Megan, the Duchess of Sussex,
and discover why she's one of our one hundred Women
to Hear. For more great listens from Seneca Women, check
(17:24):
out our other podcasts. Every weekday join us for a
brief take on all the good that's happening in the
world on Seneca's Here's Something Good, and every Thursday, listen
to inspiring and shared learnings from legendary women entrepreneurs Unmade
by Women. If you want to support organizations making a
difference for women and girls, you can donate to the
Women's Economic Future Fund. Learn more on our website at
(17:46):
Seneca Women dot com. Seneca's one hundred Women to Hear
is a collaboration between the Seneca Women Podcast Network and
I Heart Radio, with support from founding partner p and
special thanks to our I Heart producers, supervising producer Molly
Socha and supervising producer Matt Stillo. If you like what
you heard on the show, rate and review it on
Apple Podcasts, we hope you'll join us for our next
(18:07):
episode of one hundred Women to Hear, where we can
all listen, learn and get inspired. Have a great day.
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