Potus Geeks Summer Reruns: Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth was a 19th century African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Born with the name Isabella Baumfree, she was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. After going to court to recover her son, she became the first African-American woman to be successful in that kind of litigation. She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 because she believed that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside "testifying the hope that was in her". Her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. The speech became widely distributed during the Civil War under the title "Ain't I a Woman?" Sojourner Truth was from New York and grew up speaking Dutch as her first language. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit African-American troops for the Union Army. After the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves. During the Civil War she recruited African-American men to fight on the side of the Union. In the fall of 1864, she traveled to Washington DC with the intention of meeting President Lincoln.
She was unable to secure an meeting with Lincoln on her own because of her race, so she enlisted the aid of her friend Lucy Colman, a schoolteacher from Massachusetts who had become an anti-slavery lecturer. After several weeks, Mrs. Colman succeeded in arranging an appointment. When Mrs. Colman took Sojourner Truth to the White House on October 29, 1864, the two women had to wait several hours until it was their turn to see the busy president. Truth provided an account of her meeting with Lincoln in a letter she wrote for the abolitionist press. The letter was reprinted in later editions of her autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Here is how Truth described the meeting:
Upon entering his reception room we found about a dozen persons in waiting, among them two colored women. I had quite a pleasant time waiting until he was disengaged, and enjoyed his conversation with others; he showed as much kindness and consideration to the colored persons as to the whites - if there was any difference, more. One case was that of a colored woman who was sick and likely to be turned out of her house on account of her inability to pay her rent. The president listened to her with much attention, and spoke to her with kindness and tenderness. He said he had given so much he could give no more, but told her where to go and get the money, and asked Mrs. [Colman] to assist her, which she did.
The president was seated at his desk. Mrs. C. said to him, “This is Sojourner Truth, who has come all the way from Michigan to see you.” He then arose, gave me his hand, made a bow, and said, “I am pleased to see you.”
I said to him, Mr. President, when you first took your seat I feared you would be torn to pieces, for I likened you unto Daniel, who was thrown into the lion’s den; and if the lions did not tear you into pieces, I knew that it would be God that had saved you; and I said if he spared me I would see you before the four years expired, and he has done so, and now I am here to see you for myself.
He then congratulated me on my having been spared. Then I said, I appreciate you, for you are the best president who has ever taken the seat. He replied: ‘I expect you have reference to my having emancipated the slaves in my proclamation. But,’ said he, mentioning the names of several of his predecessors (and among them emphatically that of Washington), ‘they were all just as good, and would have done just as I have done if the time had come. If the people over the river [pointing across the Potomac] had behaved themselves, I could not have done what I have; but they did not, which gave me the opportunity to do these things.’ I then said, I thank God that you were the instrument selected by him and the people to do it. I told him that I had never heard of him before he was talked of for president. He smilingly replied, ‘I had heard of you many times before that.’
He then showed me the Bible presented to him by the colored people of Baltimore, of which you have no doubt seen a description. I have seen it for myself, and it is beautiful beyond description. After I had looked it over, I said to him, This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book. And for what? Let them answer who can.
I must say, and I am proud to say, that I never was treated by any one with more kindness and cordiality than were shown to me by that great and good man, Abraham Lincoln, by the grace of God president of the United States for four years more. He took my little book, and with the same hand that signed the death-warrant of slavery, he wrote as follows:
For Aunty Sojourner Truth
October 29, 1864
A. LINCOLN
As I was taking my leave, he arose and took my hand, and said he would be pleased to have me call again. I felt that I was in the presence of a friend, and I now thank God from the bottom of my heart that I always have advocated his cause, and have done it openly and boldly. I shall feel still more in duty bound to do so in time to come. May God assist me.
This meeting was later immortalized in a painting by Franklin C. Courter entitled “Lincoln Showing Sojourner Truth the Bible Presented Him by the Colored People of Baltimore.”
In 1867, After the war, Truth moved from to Battle Creek, Michigan. In 1868, she traveled to western New York and visited other locations along the East Coast, speaking to groups there. In 1870, Truth tried to secure land grants from the federal government to former enslaved people, a project she pursued for seven years without success. While in Washington, D.C., she had a meeting with President Ulysses S. Grant in the White House. In 1872, she returned to Battle Creek and tried to vote in the presidential election, but was denied the opportunity to do so and was turned away at the polling place.
Truth spoke about abolition, women's rights, prison reform, and preached to the Michigan Legislature against capital punishment. She had many prominent friends at the time, including Amy Post, William Lloyd Garrison, and Susan B. Anthony. Several days before Sojourner Truth died, a reporter came from the Grand Rapids Eagle to interview her. He described her thusly: "Her face was drawn and emaciated and she was apparently suffering great pain. Her eyes were very bright and mind alert although it was difficult for her to talk." Truth died at her Battle Creek home on November 26, 1883. Her age was believed to be 86 years, although no one was certain of her birth date. On November 28 her funeral was held at the Congregational-Presbyterian Church officiated by its pastor, the Reverend Reed Stuart. Some of the prominent citizens of Battle Creek acted as pall-bearers. Truth was buried in the city's Oak Hill Cemetery.