We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth releases February 21, 2023 and is available for pre-order now. Below is a guest post by author of We Will Be Free , Nancy Koester .
In this article, Koester introduces us to the humble beginnings of Sojourner Truth and the influence her life had and has on the pursuit of freedom for all.
Although this year marks 165 years since the technical abolition of slavery, our nation still grapples with its legacy. “Liberty and justice for all” is not fully yet achieved. People of color suffered disproportionately during the pandemic, stark education and wealth gaps remain between whites and non-whites, and black men are 2.5 times more likely than white men to be killed by police. As we advocate for equality and freedom today, we can learn much from the great changemakers of our past. One such leader was Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist and women’s rights advocate, who had a life-size statue dedicated to her in downtown Angola, Indiana. To understand the full significance of Truth’s legacy and why Angola commissioned a statue of her, it is helpful to know her life story.
Sojourner Truth lived to bring freedom. Named Isabella, she was born a slave in the Hudson Valley in 1797. New York was set to abolish slavery on July 4, 1827, but Isabella did not wait. Early one morning she took her baby daughter and left her place of bondage. She walked many miles and, by nightfall, found safety with abolitionists.
In her new freedom, Isabella had a vision of divine light, calling her to preach. Her joy was cut short when she heard that her young son, Peter had been sold south. “I will have my son,” she vowed. She could not be free while her son was enslaved. Quaker abolitionists directed her to the courthouse in Kingston, where Isabella got a lawyer. After a long fight she got Peter back from Alabama. She had won her son’s freedom, but she wept to see him covered with scars from abuse by his slave masters.
Isabella toiled many years as a housekeeper in New York City. In 1843 she took the name Sojourner Truth, saying that God called her to travel and speak the truth about sin and slavery. Her itinerant preaching led her to an anti-slavery commune in Massachusetts. The commune closed, but she got her memoir, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, published and became a traveling lecturer on abolition and women’s rights.
When the Civil War started, many Yankees said they would fight for the Union but that they didn’t care about slavery. Truth asserted that there could be no Union with slavery. Abolitionists invited her to bring this message to Indiana. Truth accepted, but due to exclusionary laws, she was arrested sixteen times for entering Indiana while black. The Indiana State Constitution barred people of color from entering or settling there. And a white person who encouraged a black person to enter Indiana could be fined as much as $500. Indiana’s law, passed in 1851, showed compliance with the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. It remained on the books until 1881. Black people already lived in Indiana, of course, but the new law was meant to keep their population small and stifle participation in the Underground Railroad. Indiana abolitionists invited Truth to their state, in part, to challenge this law. Her friends and allies ran interference for her to keep her out of jail after each arrest.
Tensions ran high at the county courthouse in Angola where Truth was to speak. Pro-slavery men came armed and angry, but a local militia escorted Truth into the courthouse as a military band played. Truth told every loyal Unionist to denounce slavery. If you are for the Union, you must be against slavery, she said. You cannot have both, because slavery kills freedom and kills union. She declared that if only she were younger, she would be a nurse or a cook for the Union Army. Given a chance, she would even fight the rebels herself!
Her enemies erupted in jeers and hisses. “It is well that I came,” Truth said. “You are afraid of my black face, because it is a looking-glass in which you see yourselves.” Men rushed to attack her, but the militia blocked their way. Truth was hurried away under guard to a waiting carriage that took her out of harm’s way.
In the fall of 1864 Truth went to Washington DC to work among the freedpeople. At a freedmen’s camp called Mason’s Island, many of the refugees were from nearby Maryland. A slave state that stayed in the Union, Maryland finally abolished slavery on November 1, 1864. But on Mason’s Island, the people “never knew that Maryland was free until I told them,” Truth said. “One old woman clung around my neck and almost choked me she was so glad .” At a big celebration there, Truth told “the people things that they had never heard.”
The first Juneteenth found Truth at Freedman’s Village at Arlington, the former estate of Robert E. Lee. While she was working there, men from Maryland snuck into the village to steal black children and force them into unpaid apprenticeships. When some mothers cried out, the kidnappers shoved them into the guard house. Truth told the mothers, “You are free citizens, and you must stand up for your rights.” The invaders threatened to lock Truth in the guard house too. “If you do,” she said, “I will make this nation rock like a cradle.” Cowed, the kidnappers left emptyhanded.
As for the town of Angola, it never forgot Truth’s visit. On June 6, 2021, the town dedicated their statue to Sojourner in the courthouse square, declaring no one is free until everyone is free. Today, Sojourner Truth remains a powerful symbol of faith and freedom. Believing that God created all people equal, she never stopped working for freedom for black people and for women of all races. The story of her life invites people of faith and good will to keep working until everyone is free. Her Truth is marching on.
We Will Be Free: The Life and Faith of Sojourner Truth is available for pre-order at Amazon , Barnes and Noble, Bookshop , Christian Book, and more.
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