During the 1850s, Truth moved to Battle Creek, Michigan. At the outset of the American Civil War, Truth collected supplies for black volunteer regiments; in 1864, she traveled to Washington, D.C., where she worked to integrate streetcars (she was received at the White House by President Abraham Lincoln) (Sojourner Truth 4). Also in 1864, Truth accepted an appointment to the National Freedmen's Relief Association with responsibilities for counseling former slaves, particularly concerning resettlement issues; in fact, as late as the 1870s, Truth encouraged the migration of freedmen to Kansas and Missouri. Finally, in 1875, Truth retired to her home in Battle Creek, where she lived until her death in 1883 (Sojourner Truth 5).
Impact of Sojourner Truth's Life on American Society. In his book, Speaking Truth to Power: Essays on Race, Resistance, and Radicalism, Manning Marable (1996) reports that, "Part of the historic strengths of the Black Freedom Movement were the deep connections between political objectives and ethical prerogatives. This connection gave the rhetoric of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Fannie Lou Hamer a clear vision of the moral ground that was simultaneously particular and universal" (98). According to Fitch and Mandizuk, Truth dedicated her life to supporting three major causes and several minor causes, and used her enormous oratorical abilities to this end. "The first major cause was the abolition of slavery," they say. "Using her own personal slave narrative, Truth argued that the enslaved black people should be free in a nation dedicated to freedom" (3).
Truth also used her personal example as a woman who worked as hard as any man in the fields in support of her second major life cause, woman's rights. The third major cause to which Truth dedicated her life was her failed attempt to relocate the contraband and eventually the freed slaves out of the cities of the East to western lands, where...
These authors report that "Her minor causes included temperance, racial bias, and even
capital punishment. Once freed, Sojourner Truth made her life that of the inveterate crusader" (4).
Conclusion
The research showed that Sojourner Truth has assumed the status she enjoys today because her life story remains fairly nebulous and open to interpretation. "Sojourner Truth," Mandziuk (2003) points out, "has become a contemporary icon for many groups and causes, most prominently for women's rights and
civil rights. The multiple meanings Truth represents have emerged partly because she left no authoritative version of her life story and works for historians and critics to engage" (271). Because she was illiterate throughout her life, Truth's life history is only available in fragments, including reported speeches, anecdotes, interpretations offered by her contemporaries, and the Narrative of her slavery years as told to and compiled by Olive Gilbert in 1851 and later by Francis Titus in 1878. "Her rhetorical construction inevitably is the product of the processes of history writing, anthologizing,
criticism, and memorializing. The rhetorical process of transforming and transfiguring Truth has rendered her into a convenient figurative vehicle, suitable to be affixed with meanings that extend, collapse, or transcend her actual life and works" (Mandizuk 272).
Works Cited
David, Linda and Erlene Stetson. Glorying in Tribulation: The Lifework of Sojourner Truth. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1994.
Fitch, Suzanne Pullon and Roseann M. Mandziuk. Sojourner Truth as Orator: Wit, Story, and Song. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997.
Mandziuk, Roseann M. (2003). "Commemorating Sojourner Truth: Negotiating the Politics of Race and Gender in the Spaces of Public Memory." Western Journal of
Communication, 67(3):271.
Marable, Manning. Speaking Truth to Power: Essays on Race, Resistance, and Radicalism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996.
Taylor, Yuval (Ed.). I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave
Narratives, 1770-1849. Volume 1. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1999.
Sojourner Truth. (2005).…
