Sojourner Truth: American abolitionist, suffragist, preacher
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BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner and I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are strapping on our sturdiest walking boots and hiking across America to learn about renowned 19th century abolitionist, orator and civil rights activist Sojourner Truth. And to help us, we have two very special guests.

in History Corner. She's an assistant professor in African-American history at Cornell University. Her research focuses on black and indigenous histories, including the history of racial formation and identity in America. And you might remember her from our previous episodes of this show about Harriet Tubman and Josephine Baker. It's Dr. Michelle Crestfield. Welcome back, Michelle. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy to be back. The gang is back together. It is. We're sort of series one reunion in some ways. It's lovely.

And in Comedy Corner, she needs no introduction. She's a comedian, actor and writer. You'll have seen her all over the TV on Taskmaster, Frankie Boyle's New World Order, The Horn Section TV show and Too Hot to Handle. And you'll know her from this very podcast from many, many episodes, including recent highlights, Pythagoras, What a Dude, and the history of Broadway musicals. It's your Dead to Me superstar, Desiree Burch. Welcome back, Desiree. Thank you so much. But this is like a series one reunion. I feel like they should do a behind the music episode.

on us. You know, none of you young listeners know what that is. But you know what I mean? The inside documentary on podcasts, although I guess podcasts are already kind of an insider. Anyway, you know what I mean? Desiree, you and Michelle have previously covered Harriet Tubman and Josephine Baker. Now, Harriet Tubman, obviously an abolitionist, a very famous woman in American history. Are you excited to be back for more abolitionist history? I

What are your emotions when you hear the word Sojourner Truth? She's one of the big ones. Do you know what I mean? And it's also... She's one of the big ones that you learn about so early on. And then everyone's like, what do you know about Sojourner Truth? You're like...

she's dope dude uh you know and then you have to separate all the you know because you're like okay you know harry tumman did more of the gun wielding sojourner tooth did a lot of like the speaking and stuff like there's stuff that she did that i vaguely remember but like i'm excited to find out the cool biopic you know biopic biopic i don't know how we say that word biopic for me but yeah i've

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's biopic, but some people say biopic and it sounds like a, it sounds bionic. It sounds like a... It sounds like an eye condition. I'm biopic. I can't see out of my left eye. Yeah, I don't know. Yes, or I see out of both eyes, but not the way you think. So, what do you know? This is the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject. And...

And I think American listeners are going to immediately have a Desiree response of, I know stuff. Hang on, do I know stuff? Do I know anything? Perhaps it's a childhood memory coming back. Outside of the States, I think probably less familiar name. She's perhaps most famous for the quote, Ain't I a Woman, which has been used by feminist activists for years, including by Bell Hooks for her debut book title. But there are no big movie biopics. Biopics?

whatever we're calling it, there are no big TV dramas. If you go on IMDb, you're not getting much back, which is quite surprising.

So what was Sojourner's journey? How did she go from enslavement to crusading campaigner? And was Ain't I a Woman even her line? Let's find out. Right, Dr. Michelle, we'll start at the beginning. When and where was Sojourner Truth born? And I'm presuming that wasn't her name at birth. That is correct. So the woman that we will come to know as Sojourner was actually born Isabella Bonfrey.

And while there is no exact date for her birth, we know that she was born around 1797 in Ulster County, New York, which is a rural area about two hours north of New York City. Isabella was the youngest of 10 or 12 children born to the enslaved couple James and Elizabeth, and she was nicknamed Belle. And the young Belle was enslaved on a northern farm. Unlike the southern plantations that pervade historical lore, northern slavery was much more small-scale.

Most people owned one or two enslaved people who labored on small-scale farming or domestic work.

So although slavery was relatively small in scale in this area, northern slavery and New York State slavery in particular, where Isabella will be held, was very central to the international slave trade. So her early life, she's on a farm, she's owned by a family who owns about six or seven people, which makes that family very wealthy and notable for the time. So this is like the milieu in which, you know, she begins her life.

So like, was it that Southern slavery was more industrial and Northern slavery was more sort of personal for like moneyed families? Why are there double digit number slaves in Southern plantations, but like only a handful in the North?

Actually, Isabella's birth date is very significant because it's the year that the cotton gin is invented. And it's the cotton gin that really allows Southern slavery to take the shape that it does because it allows this kind of mass cultivation of cotton, which will revolutionize the industry and require much more human labor to cultivate those crops.

Northern slavery, by comparison, you do have in the early years, right, of the, you know, the 1600s, people are definitely growing crops. But by the time that Isabella is born, it's very much shifted to where it's much more skilled labor, where you might see enslaved labor being deployed in homes,

you see at the time that she's born a real kind of shift, right, in the kind of power of slavery in the United States, but also the ways in which slavery will become to look very different between the two regions. That's fascinating. Desiree, do you know what language Isabella grew up speaking? Oh, yeah, because it's New York, so Dutch, right? Yeah, yeah, good knowledge. Yeah, because there's so much weird Dutch stuff in New York that you're like, huh?

Yeah, I mean, New Amsterdam. Dutch is her primary first language. And you said 10 siblings, possibly 11 siblings. We're not sure. She's one of 12 or 10. So the parents have been enslaved. The children are enslaved. And the person who enslaves them is Colonel Johannes Hardenberg. And you said he's wealthy.

What happened when he died? So when the colonel was alive, the parents were allowed to basically farm on a small scale in conditions that we would liken to sharecropping, which actually doesn't really take formation to later. But essentially, Elizabeth and James live on their own in a cottage where they farm a small tract of land that was rented from the Hardenberg.

And in exchange from that land, they would have owed them labor, but also credits towards whatever it cost to cultivate that tract of land. We could conjecture that possibly at some point in time that the parents could have been able to purchase that land outright. But those dreams are really dashed when he dies and his son takes over.

And the son is really trying to make money. And that involves selling the young Isabella away at the age of nine. So her parents are frequently depressed, going into bouts of kind of emotional hardship because many of her siblings are sold away. So when Isabella grows up, she only knows her brother. And so it's this constant fear that our parents are going to have that their children will be sold away. And this happens when Isabella is nine.

Just one by one, they all kind of get sold off to a place. Yeah, I mean, it is really, really dark. Like once your first kid is sold off, it's like constantly waiting for the next shoe to drop, both for the parents and for the kids of like, when am I going to get pulled away? Like I'm sure after the first one or two, then you're just preparing for the worst constantly and waiting for it. And what does, you know, I mean, we talk about anxiety now. Yeah.

Yeah. You know what I mean? There was no Wellbutrin. There was no counseling, you know, and like, yeah, no one to talk to about the fact, you know, you just had to, anyway. It's the worst. It sounds terrible. It's a horrible, horrible childhood. And she was sold to an English speaking family, the Neelys, and she didn't speak English. Were they dicks about it though? Well, you know. I don't know.

I imagine they weren't hugely supportive, being a slave-owning family. Right, that's correct. So she sold for $100 alongside a flock of sheep. And the Neelys are an English-speaking family, and Isabella only spoke Dutch. And so she had a hard time, as you might imagine, and so she can't comprehend the instructions given to her.

And on top of the language barrier, the Neelys are generally cruel people and they make life difficult for the young Isabella. And she faces violent and cruel punishments that she would later recall during, you know, in her later life and bear the marks of this abuse on her body for a long time. Oh, my God. How weird. Some English speaking people were weird about somebody else not speaking their language. Right. Like, what's this weird thing?

But her father, so Isabella's father, he is an older man and he is some distance from his daughter after the sale, but he doesn't lose track of her. Right.

And this makes it very different than the relationship that he's able to have with his other children. So he travels a distance and actually implores the Neelys to sell Isabella. And so she sold again in 1809 to a tavern keeper called Martinus Shriver. And she spends about 18 months with the Shrivers where she works at an inn. She makes beer. She picks herbs. She fishes. She farms. And she would claim that it's the Shrivers who taught her to curse. Right.

which is a very interesting development for a woman who would be known for her piety and religious devotion. If you're going to learn English, learn the important stuff first. Yeah. Anytime you learn another language. And then in 1810, Isabella was sold again for $175. Who is she sold to this time? She's sold to John and Sally Dumont.

And she would spend the longest time of her enslavement with the Dumonts, about 17 years in total. So she arrives around the age of 12, roughly, and she's there until about the age of 30.

And it's during her time with the Dumonts that Isabella would do farm work for John, but she also performed housework for Sally. And so she gains a reputation for the hard work that also characterized her father. And she also has a stunning physique and figure. She's, you know, just under six feet tall. She's a very tall, statuesque woman. So she's doing the work of several people.

which really gains her the kind of compliment and the admiration of John Dumont. And she begins to care very much about how Dumont feels about her.

And that is in stark contrast to her feelings about Sally, who she resents more so. And where Dumont might praise Isabella in her work ethic, Sally is a lot more critical. So, I mean, that's a strange dynamic, I suppose, that she's there for nearly 18 years and she's fond of the man who's enslaved her.

That's complicated stuff, Desiree, isn't it? Yeah, but obviously everybody's experience is relative to their context and circumstances. So if all you've done is grown up enslaved and you are, you know, like obviously you've been put into hopefully a better position than you were before with a different family that was really horrible. And if somebody is now giving you respect

for your work. All the while, there's someone right next to you who sucks like everybody else sucks so that you're kind of like, okay, well, that's something. At least someone is seeing some part of my humanity. Michelle, we get a marriage for Isabella, or Belle, and...

Who is she married to? And is it her choice? How does this work? So she is actually forced to marry another enslaved man owned by the Dumont family called Thomas. But interestingly enough, this is not the first man that she falls in love with. She actually falls in love with a young man named Robert who was owned by a neighboring family. And Robert and Isabella very much loved each other. But Robert's owner did not want him with Isabella.

And Robert actually defies his enslaver and goes to see Isabella and he is beaten within an inch of his life, which really kind of breaks his spirit to continue to kind of disobey. And so that relationship ends, which allows Isabella to be free to partner with Thomas. We don't know a lot about Thomas, but they have a general affection for one another and they have five children together.

Diana, Peter, Elizabeth, Sophia, and a fifth unknown child. In 1826, Desiree, something important happens in Isabella's life, in many lives, actually. Do you want to guess what it is? Or maybe you know what it is. 1826 in New York's history. I don't know if there's any... If there's like...

a state thing about slavery or something that happens because, okay, because that's going to come to the South later, but like it comes to the North earlier. So I don't know if they abolish slavery or if they change the rules to make it better or something. Yeah. I mean, I love the way you figured that out. There's...

I don't know, it's just trying to figure out what's the window of history, you know, because you know the cutoff date and then there's a later real one, and then you're trying to figure out what happened in the middle. So yeah. Yeah. Bang on. Michelle, 4th of July, 1827, which then comes into act in 28th. That's the only date we ever do anything in America. 4th of July is a good date to do things. All history happens on one day, one day a year. We'll get it all sorted out. Everyone's signing away.

Yeah, Michelle, the state of New York abolishes slavery or what is the definition? Yes, that's absolutely right. Desiree Bertsch, you remain my best student. Thank you. Oh, my God. That's all I've ever wanted to hear in my life, Michelle. Thank you. Continue. Official Cornell degree for you, Desiree. Amazing. Good. Good. I'm actually going to not have to pay for this one. This is so...

Yeah, no, she's racking up the degrees. She's a credentialed woman. But to get back to your point, you know, Isabella gets her freedom, but it's not an easy feat. So in 1799, New York State passes the Gradual Emancipation Act. And according to the act, children born to enslaved women after July 4th, 1799 are born free, but are required to serve a period of indentured servitude, ending at 28 for men and 25 for women.

And they do this because state leaders were very concerned about the state instantaneously losing its labor force, right? And so they wanted to transition away from slave labor. In 1811, the state of New York announces that enslaved people born before 1799 will be free on July 4th, 1827. But it retained the provision of the 1799 Act for children born after 1799.

Essentially, Isabella is poised to be free, but not her five children. Oh. Yeah. Right. That's heartbreaking. And also, presumably that means the children could be taken away from her still.

Right. Absolutely. And so because of the act, the children are basically going to be laborers, right, for the owner of the mother, right, until they reach, you know, 28 for the young men, 25 for the women. Isabella tries to bargain for her own emancipation in 1826 and an early emancipation, which Dumont grants on the condition that Isabella would, quote, do well and be faithful. Right.

And so if she does well and does her work, he agrees to free her one year early. So on July 4th, 1826. However, when that day arrives, Dumont went back on his word and argued that Isabella- Oh, who needs to be faithful? Not Dumont.

And so one of the reasons that he makes this claim is that she has an injury. She hurts her hand. And so she can't work at the full capacity. But she has these strong feelings of fairness and wanting to do right by him. These are feelings that she would later kind of narrate. And so she sets a time. She works into the autumn of 1826. And so she spends 100 pounds of wool by hand.

in addition to doing much of this outside labor. And she's beginning to turn that wool into yarn that could be used for these various projects. And then she decides that now is the time. Is this where the Rumpelstiltskin story comes from? Because this sounds like there's an evil troll man who's like, I won't let you be free until you spill this yarn. What?

Oh, man. So Isabella takes things into her own hands and she goes on the run. Does she take any of her kids with her? Yes. So she takes her infant daughter, Sophia, and she would later say, I did not run away because I thought that wicked. I walked away because I thought that was all right.

And in walks she did, about 13 miles. I calculated, apparently, that's a little over 21 kilometers for our adherence to the metric system. She goes and she takes refuge with a family, the Van Wagenens, who

are anti-slavery, have a strong opposition to slavery and they take in Isabella and her infant daughter and it's I'm sure a hard decision she leaves her children and her husband behind with Dumont in order to make this break and to self-emancipate. And does she escape or does she get tracked down?

So John Dumont eventually tracks her down. He does. He comes to the Van Wagenens and they implore him to sell Isabella and Sophia to them. And so they pay Dumont $25, $20 for Isabella and $5 for Sophia.

settling the debt and essentially securing the freedom for both mother and child. In a gesture of how much this would mean to her, that the Van Wagenens would do this, Isabella actually takes their surname. So she becomes Isabella Van Wagenen. She's been taken in by the Van Wagenens. She's got her daughter Sophia with her. And then she hears that her son Peter...

has been taken because her husband Thomas has died, Michelle. Peter had been still in enslavement, owned by the Dumonts, and John Dumont had decided to sell him to a slave owner in Alabama. And this is hugely upsetting. And she does something extraordinary, Michelle. Can you tell us what she does in 1828?

Yes. So her five-year-old son is sold. And not only is he sold, he's sold south to Alabama, which lives in the mind of many enslaved people as the worst place that you want to be enslaved. You do not want to be sold down south. The conditions are arduous and dangerous and violent, and it breaks the spirit. So Isabella is very concerned about her son. She gets lawyers and she sues. Not only does she sue Getney, so her son is sold to a man called Solomon Getney,

for participating in the illegal sale of her son because New York state law prevents the sale of a person who would be free in a place where they cannot ever be free, right? So by going to Alabama, he's never going to be emancipated. And she sues Albany Supreme Court for allowing the sale to happen. So she sues the man and the state.

And she is victorious. So in 1828, the judge rules, quote, the boy be delivered into the hands of his mother, having no other master, no other controller, no other conductor but his mother. And she becomes, in bringing the suit, the first black woman to win a legal victory against a white man to secure a family member's freedom. So this is hugely, hugely historic.

And we owe a lot to the archives. So the New York Archive discovered records only a few years ago in 2022 that give us much more information about the case, including the fact that Isabella was allowed to give a deposition, which is very uncommon for Black Americans in the court at the time. And Getney, we know from these archival records, was prosecuted for kidnapping and only returned Peter to avoid indictment.

And the records also allow us to understand that the young Peter was returned to his mother badly beaten and abused. And so it's definitely a story of celebration, but also there's hardship. But I'm really excited about what people might be able to glean now that we have these records. The amazing thing really now is that Isabella is free. She's been assisted by the Van Wageners. She's still called Isabella Van Wagenen, but she goes off to New York and she now goes to work for white families, but wealthy families as a free woman.

And one family is called the Latourettes. They sound quite French to me, Michelle. Is she speaking French now? Not that I know of. I'm not sure. But, you know, she's a multilingual woman. So who knows?

And they're very religious, aren't they? Yes, that's absolutely right. So the La Tourette's are as religious as they are wealthy, we could say. And they're followers of a religion that would come to be known as perfectionism. And perfectionism is... I worship that as well. That's why I never get anything done.

Right. And so perfectionism is closely tied to the Pentecostal tradition, which I think, Desiree, some of this is going to resonate with you. So it's about spreading the gospel, living plainly, speaking in tongues, singing hymns, seeking miracles, fasting, washing each other's feet.

And so the Latter-Rights began this holy club, which is essentially a church that they hold in their home. And they also minister in the community amongst some of the most downtrodden, prisoners, prostitutes. And Isabella begins to preach with this club as well. And she also works in the field. She begins to really cultivate.

craft, her oratory style, her spiritual conviction at this moment in a really amazing way. She becomes a housekeeper for Elijah Pearson, who is a successful businessman who would become a leading religious reformer. And Pearson would claim to be a prophet, and he believed that he could cure illness and prevent death.

So much so that when his wife, Sarah, died, likely the result of the extreme fasting that the community had been engaged in, he attempted to pray her back to life. Right. So Isabella, yes, is enmeshed in a society of deep religious devotion.

If you're going to try to do miracles, I would start on water first. I'd be practicing that. Start on loaves. Yeah. You know, just be like, oh, my wife's... Well, it's time to crack it out. Boom. But then she finds someone even more interesting. Someone comes to her door, calling himself the prophet Matthias. Desiree, who do you think he claimed to be? I'll give you a clue. He's wearing gold robes. He's got a fancy beard when he shows up at her door. Ha ha ha.

I mean, if you hadn't told me that, if he just showed up on the door, I was like, ah, Jehovah's Witnesses, pretend you're not home. But, but,

But they definitely never claimed to be Jesus. Yeah, it's Jesus. Also, we've all seen, well, I guess he didn't have the benefit of seeing Indiana Jones, but you know, you got to come as a carpenter. Jesus isn't coming out in his Elvis gear, like with a full Vegas gold on, just being like, oh, I'm just a humble Lord and Savior right at your, no, he's all like, oh yeah, hey, I'm just a guy with a beard. Do you want me to fix that shelf? Also, have you heard about my dad? God, like you gotta, you gotta do a slow roll.

on that. You've got to be humble. Matthias is like, I know I'm named after a saint, but I'm actually Jesus. Michelle, was Isabella convinced by this gold-dressed man or did she wholly ghost him? Not at all. She is so convinced that she wept for joy and kissed his feet. Okay. Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah.

It didn't hurt that he styles his hair and clothing to look like those chromatic images of Jesus that were circulating at the time. So he's very much trying to play the part. Look, we've all been scammed before. Everybody, no one can act like they're above it. There's a scam for every single person out there. That's why the banks are always letting you know what's up. So I get it. She'd been waiting to meet him.

Yes, she does. And in 1833, she follows him to a commune in Westchester called Kingdom of Matthias. Oh, she joins a cult. She does. Yes! She does. She does. And members of this organization, cult, if you will, it's what it is.

They sign over thousands of dollars in property to Matthias, and he styles himself as a prophet chosen by God, and he believes that he is the only prophet. So Elijah Pearson, who has a lot of money, also a prophet, he becomes kind of edged out, even though he still remains a member of the community. But it's Matthias who is the one who is speaking the word. He takes what he calls a

a spirit match. He's legally married to another woman, but takes on this other woman as his spirit match. He styles himself the father. So he very much wants to be the head of everything.

This is a cult. Yeah. He literally is like, we're going to take all his property and I'm going to have several wives. This is exactly what a cult is. Yeah. And we've done a cult already with Pythagoras. So this is our second cult together, Desiree. Yeah. He didn't invent the wheel. No, no. This is a cult. And Isabella is trying to preach, Michelle, but is not allowed to preach in this cult. So that's not ideal. Yeah.

Yes. And so she, you know, begins to or attempts at least to defy him. But he uses physical abuse and punishment against, you know, his followers. And so it's a real tough situation that she finds herself in and is marginalized in this community.

Yeah, and the commune collapses in 1834, Desiree, so only a year later. But Isabella stays loyal to Matthias. She lends him money. Oh my God. She gets him a lawyer. We all choose toxic people. Even his own wife hadn't joined the commune, but Isabella is still team Matthias.

It's a bit of a red flag, isn't it, when the wife won't join? But like all she's known are red flags her whole life. All right. I'm putting the upper like a relationship expert would look at this and be like it. You know, it was bad from the beginning in her upbringing. And then she met John, who would prepare the toxic relationship for this guy, Matthias, who beats her. And she stayed. Oh, I love this. And I hate this. Matthias is.

He gets in trouble, actually, or he's alleged to have poisoned Elijah Pearson, who dies. Oh, yeah. So after a prolonged illness, and so it makes the newspapers. And this actually even brings side eyes, for lack of a better word, to Isabella.

A family, the Folgers, accuse her of trying to poison them. So they both need lawyers and she gets a lawyer for herself, she gets a lawyer for Mathias, she tries to get all these statements. She even goes back to DeMont to get a character statement. This is a really tough moment. It's all over the newspapers.

And Matthias eventually kind of abandons Isabella, goes back to his wife. And so that's really how the whole thing kind of comes to an end, that particular chapter. So she's once again having to kind of start over. They didn't teach us this in kindergarten when we were drawing her a picture on a piece of worksheet and coloring it in. They were just like, ain't I a woman? She's a feminist.

The end. Not like, oh, she joins a cult and is like all up with the cult leader who is super toxic and then he poisons. I mean, but this is this is exciting. This is sexy stuff.

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emerges as an identity. The woman we, you know, the name of the episode, the woman people have heard of, the person Desiree colored in at school. How does Isabella Van Wagenen become Sojourner Truth? Yes. So on June 1st, 1843, the day of Pentecost, she claims to have experienced the Holy Spirit calling her to travel and preach. At

At that point in time, she had been known more frequently as Sojourner, but that's when she really adopts the surname Truth because she believes that, you know, she is as true as God's word. God is with her. Sojourner Truth is one who travels to preach God's truth. And she spent several months on the road trying to convince audiences to seek salvation before Judgment Day, which she predicts would occur in March 1844. So it is imminent.

And so there's a huge expediency to her work at this moment. Oh, she believes the world's going to end. She does.

And she travels around New England. She's preaching. She doesn't speak to her children or family about this decision. And she gave her employer at the time only one hour's notice before she sets out on this new path. Amazing. Sounds like she's also the reason that employers now require a minimum of two weeks. Yeah, exactly. One hour. One hour. Not going to cut it.

She'd gone from Isabella Bumfrey to Isabella Waggonen. She's now Sojourner Truth. And soon she was living in another commune, Desiree. Such a hippie. I'm into it. We never saw this part. Loves a guy in a beard and robes. But this one's less problematic, Michelle. This is the Northampton Association for Education and Industry, which sounds like a kind of local government thing. What is this commune?

Yes. So it's a kind of education, civic organization focused on women's rights, liberal education, abolition. She doesn't immediately love it. It's kind of a stark kind of place that people bathe in a river. Right. So it's about this kind of like essential kind of living.

But she believes it gives her equality of feeling, liberty of thought, and the largeness of soul. And so this is a utopian community that's a stop on the Underground Railroad. And it's really where she begins to cultivate her kind of feelings around anti-slavery and women's issues particularly. So it's a huge moment for her in her development as a speaker.

And Desiree, this is where she meets another very famous American abolitionist. Do you want to guess who? Can it please be Harriet Tubman? Because she's on the Underground Railroad. It's a stop. Did Harriet be like, hey, handshake? Like, I love it. It's like, you know, it's like the fingers touching on the Sistine Chapel. It's like,

I mean, if it's not her, then it's Frederick Douglass. Yeah, well done. Yeah, very good. Yeah, yeah. I mean, Harriet was probably busy sort of, you know. It was busy shooting people. She was busy on the ground, you know, breaking people out of prison. She was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll meet her later. All right, I have a few things going on. But if she's speaking, so is Frederick Douglass. So I'm sure that they would like be sitting on plenty of panels together. Exactly. And Frederick Douglass, we've done an episode on it. Listeners, if you want to check that out, it's a really cool show.

good one. Douglas is a renowned orator. He's a brilliant speaker and incredibly articulate. You might assume that Douglas and Sojourner Truth get on really well, but there's sort of tension, Michelle. There can only be one! It's not Highlander, that's right. Yes. It's like comics meeting at the same show. It's like, oh, I see you're trying to cut into my abolitionist coin. Cool. Who's the headline act? Is it Frederick Douglas or is it Sojourner Truth?

Yeah, I mean, the headline act is, well, you know, Frederick Douglass is just starting out. And so there's tension. And they disagreed on these kind of philosophical things that also, I think, bled into their personality differences. So Douglass really stressed the importance of education. He taught himself to read and write and really wanted to be this sophisticated public orator, right, who styled himself on the figures that surrounded him. Sojourner Truth, right? She's Sojourner Truth now, right?

She was illiterate. She never learned to read and write. And I think by this time in her 30s, she was okay with that. She wasn't trying to change. And she had this more kind of homespun, accessible type of demeanor. And, you know, Douglass would say something not so nice about her. Douglass would write about how she would publicly point out his mistakes publicly.

and also call him to the carpet for things that he would do in terms of prioritizing black men over women. Douglass really believed that truth was trying to really make him look bad in the public. I mean, it's fascinating, isn't it? Because we can lift both of these up as heroes and as pioneers, but actually there's a sort of fractious relationship there.

So Jenna Truth does copy one of Douglas's better ideas, i.e. a book. He writes a sort of very, very famous book, sells quite a lot of copies, 4,500. And six months later, Jenna Truth sort of announces that she's going to do a book. What's her book called, Michelle? Yeah, so Sojourner Needs the Money, right? She's giving it all away to Matthias and these other types of institutions that she's involved in. Yeah.

So she narrates her life story to Olive Gilbert, who's a friend of William Lloyd Garrison, so the noted abolitionist. So it's the narrative of Sojourner Truth drawn from her book of life. And it's published in 1850.

And even though the narrative is about Sojourner Truth, she is a person who can't read and write. So she's narrating her life story to Olive Gilbert. And Gilbert's voice is actually very present. And at one point, kind of implores the reader, you need to buy this book. This woman has spent her money poorly. Her daughters are not taking care of her. The only way that you're going to support this woman is if you buy this book.

Did he do that at the beginning? Because no one's going to find that in the middle if they haven't already bought the book. Yeah, put it on the front cover. You must buy this book. It's very important. Like, seriously, you guys, buy this book. So it's published in 1850. So it takes four or five years or so to actually get this book down. And it's an autobiography with two voices, which is a slightly unusual idea. But there is a PR strategy in that The Journal of Truth quite cleverly gets a celebrity endorsement. She gets the endorsement of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Do you know Harriet Beecher Stowe, Desiree? Uncle Tom's Cabin? Yeah, that's right. Yeah, okay. Huge, huge bestseller. Another abolitionist. By getting an endorsement, that sells copies.

And later, Michelle Stowe publishes an article about meeting Sojourner Truth. It's an interesting document, but it's tricky. Yes. So in 1853, Sojourner Truth approaches Harriet Beecher Stowe for this endorsement. She gives it. And then 10 years later, Stowe will publish this article titled Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sybil. And the piece actually suggests that Truth had died. So she has to come out later and tell the people, I didn't die. I'm still around. Oh, God.

It also is notable because it depended on inaccurate, heavily racist stereotypes.

Yeah, it really gains notoriety and really contributes to a particular narrative of truth that is less sophisticated than the real person. But at the same time, Stowe is hugely credited with furthering truth's celebrity, right? So this article makes her hugely popular. She's able, from the money sold on the book, to buy her own home, actually. So in addition to the Harriet Beecher Stowe endorsement, the fact that it only costs 25 cents, which...

which apparently at that time, I know nothing is affordable. So the book is flying off the shelves, right? And allowing her to make this money. I mean, for the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, are we surprised that she gave her an endorsement that was a little bit sort of not as woke as we would have enjoyed it?

for the time but also I think there are always artists who are like yeah they don't fully get me but everybody listens to them you know even now yeah you want that endorsement you just have to sort of cringe your way through it I guess in 1852 just the year before that kind of big interview with Harriet Beecher Stowe or that big moment with Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852 Sojourner and and

Frederick Douglass clashed again because Douglass was starting to sort of suggest that taking up arms might be necessary for the emancipation of African-Americans and that perhaps God had abandoned them. And Sojourner manages to shut him up in public in front of an audience by saying, Frederick, is God dead? What a line! LAUGHTER

Yes. Yes. So she said, you know, in saying this, she's really trying to get him to think that only when God is dead will violence be the answer. So she at the time is very, you know, against violence. She believes that, you know, prayer, faith, faithfulness to God's word is what's going to see.

African-Americans and slave people through this moment. And so it's this, again, another example of this ideological tension between these two people. He's literally silenced by this line, Desiree. Can you imagine her with hecklers in a comedy club?

Sojourner Truth, live and loud. You can't handle the truth. Abolitionist totally destroys other abolitionists on stage at the Chuckle Hut. I mean, yeah, because it's like, look, I know you're Frederick Douglass, but are you ready to be Nietzsche right now? Is God dead? Or are you just showing your weakness right now? I mean, she's like, don't mess with me. I've been in two cults.

That's true. You don't want to know how determined and strong my faith is. So in the 1850s, with the book out, Sojourner Truth went on a book tour. Her name means traveling, so she's living up to her name. She's traveling. And she's fighting for women's rights as well as an abolitionist, which is a really important distinction. And she meets Michelle William Lloyd Garrison. She meets a British MP, George Thompson.

So there's an international movement here, which is interesting. Is she famous by this point? Is she renowned? Are people flocking to go and see her talk? So she has a lot of audiences, but actually the media is very uneven about its coverage of her. So oftentimes she's not mentioned by name in the papers. And so if we're looking at it from the historical record, it's very hard to tell. Yet we also have narratives of people speaking about what a great orator she is.

And so it's very clear that whenever she is speaking, that she's really, that the audience is raptured by her. She's known for, she sings to them. She has this powerful speaking quality. And she's also really funny and apparently very sarcastic. And so, and she's able to really infuse this wit and this humor into her speaking engagements where she's talking about these issues, right? Like,

you know, slavery, abolition, women's inequality, right? Very serious things. But she's able to do so in a way that really invites audiences in. So she's funny, Desiree. And she's 5'11". She's got this deep, strong voice. I mean, I'm just saying, like, I mean, my predecessor here, like, although I'm probably not going to sing on stage anytime soon, but you never know. If it works, it works. You know, it's interesting her approach to,

You know, there's always been there's always a back and forth within sort of Black progress about like Elaine Locke and Zora Neale Hurston did the same thing about like, you know, can you use vernacular and can you be relatable to people or does it need to be about like the talented 10th and all of this other stuff? So like, you know, you need both. Like you need you need a Malcolm and a Martin. Like you need both.

both sides of this. So it's amazing that, you know, yeah, she didn't learn how to read. She learned how to have a reputation. She also flexed her biceps. She sort of, you know, she showed off her guns. She's a show woman. Yeah. Come on. There's songs, there's stories, there's Jesus, there's guns, but not the kind Frederick Douglass is talking about. Yeah. Because God is very much alive. Exactly. There we go. Now, I think we have to get to the most important speech that she

is said to have given, which is of course the entire woman's speech, Michelle. And this is an iconic speech.

Does she say that? What do we know about the speech? Can you give us a potted history of it? I will also say that I gave this speech as a kid on the news, on the morning news at 6 a.m. So it's very dear to me, but it is a complicated history. So Truth gave this speech or is purported to have given this speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention that was held in Akron in May 1851. And in this speech, we do know that Truth spoke about how she could do as much physical labor as a man.

about how Jesus was the son of God and of a woman, argued very humorously that women were valued in the eyes of God in a way that men were not. She says she's plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could heed me.

And aren't I a woman? So that's the part of the text that's often attributed to her. The article was written by an organizer of this convention called Frances Dana Gage. It is believed that she writes this directly in response to Stowe's more stereotypical and damaging kind of depiction of truth in that Libyan Sybil piece. And so Gage here is making a specific point about the intersection of a kind of women's

ideology or political orientation in that of a kind of black pride or kind of black ideology, right? She's trying to bring these things together that you can be both black and woman. She does so in adopting a dialect that was not truth's.

Much of the kind of practice of the time for particularly writers who are trying to elevate the abolitionist cause is that they're translating the kind of oratory of enslaved or formerly enslaved people into broken dialect. And it's, you know, offensive, right? Particularly to our kind of modern ear. It's also inaccurate. That's not how truth spoke.

We've made it clear today, right? She was of Dutch heritage, right? She had a Dutch accent and spoke like many people in her region. In one line, then that little man in black dar, he say woman can't have as much right as man. That would not have been the speech. Yeah, but if you're going to come and do some rap, you're going to pretend you've been to jail. You know, like you're going to talk.

How many, you know, like you're going to come hard. You're not like even if you're Dutch, you're going to try to sound like you're American black and not Dutch if you want to sound authentic. And she's she's doing the performance. So like, I don't know. I kind of get it. We'll talk more about it in the nuance window. I know, Michelle. But the thing that follows the speech soon after is the American Civil War speech.

What did Sojourner Truth do in the Civil War? Yeah, so she becomes a huge figure in terms of trying to galvanize support amongst Black Americans, particularly to the Union cause. And so she works very hard to recruit Black men into the Union army. Her grandson, right, also enlists. And so that's a huge moment. And she speaks with...

President Abraham Lincoln about what is to come for black Americans. And she comes to, you know, really support the war. She sees it as necessary, as religiously, morally necessary for the country. And she becomes really interested in what's going to happen for people after the war. But in terms of her work for the Union Army in particular, she's collecting food for troops,

She's using her photographs to bring awareness to the war cause and really trying to popularise the notion that this is an important endeavour for black Americans to be engaged in. She met three presidents in her life, Desiree. She met Abraham Lincoln, but she also met Andrew Johnson and then Ulysses S. Grant as well. So she's, you know, she's moving in high circles. How do you think the meeting went with Abe Lincoln, Desiree? What's your...

Well, if you ask it like that, I mean, Sojourner, she loves that truth. She loves that tea. She's spicy. So someone like Douglas might have been a little bit more like, oh, hello, and blah, blah, blah, and we're doing official things. She might have been a little bit freer with her opinions about how lucky this president was to meet her and all of her insight. So I don't know. I think it could have been spicy. Yeah.

So you think she played Sojourner Truth or Dare with the president? She was, you know, a bit of a risky game. Yes, and he was like, dare. Dare, yeah. Michelle, I don't think we know how it went necessarily, but we get a sense perhaps that the person she was with felt that he was

rude to her? Yeah, there are conflicting accounts here. Yeah, thank you very much for that. So Truth would describe Lincoln as amenable and someone who greeted her as an equal. But she would attend this meeting with her friend and colleague, Lucy Coleman, who would later describe Lincoln as tense when he met Truth. And Coleman alleges that Lincoln actually addresses her Truth as he would a washerwoman. And so as actually not recognizing Truth's stature and importance

Yeah, I suppose for Sojourner Truth, her saying he was amenable to me, that works in her favor. So maybe she wants that meeting to be well received. Yeah, I wanted her to be up in there and be like, oh, so you're the president. Well, let me tell you something. But yeah, I also can see how she'd be like, you know what, it helps to have powerful people on your side.

You know, so like, like, let's make him feel like everything was great and get what we need, especially since she's so pro-war now. I love, I love when she's like, you know, I was never against the war. I was just against Douglas. Yeah, exactly. I just could never stand him. So like Douglas, The Journey to Truth used photography very carefully, very cleverly to sort of disseminate her image.

But after the war, was she an important part of the conversations in the rebuilding of America, Michelle? Did Sojourner Truth get her due after the crisis had ended? Yes and no. So she becomes really part of these circles. Right. So she is with leading women's organizations.

rights and suffrage figures. So in 1872, she joined Susan B. Anthony in trying to vote in a presidential election. She's turned away. She's touring New York State. And by this time, you know, in 1870, she's in her 70s. And she's lecturing daily, sometimes twice a day. She participates

in efforts to try to get land for black Americans, even though that's never really kind of supported by Congress. So she's really has and is developing grand political ambitions, right, well into her later years.

and really has what, you know, we will know to be really powerful interlocutors. But, you know, I would say, you know, going back to something that we discussed earlier, right, we often know their names and know more about them than we do about truth. So there's certainly an unevenness. When you say land for African-Americans, are you saying that she wanted to create like reservations almost for people who'd been freed?

So mostly like not not quite a reservation, but wanting to have the kind of 40 acres and a mule kind of conversation. Right. There was a kind of brief dream of this, but it wouldn't become realized. But I do think it's a kind of testament to her vision that she anticipates that the Civil War will leave much undone for black Americans.

I can't remember the timing of 48 Years a Mule, but this is post-Civil War. So this is like Reconstruction. So that must have come up. Like, is she part of a conversation or is she starting a conversation that takes off later? Like, what's the timing of her trying to do this?

So she's very much part of a conversation that's going on. But I think because of her proximity, right, she's one, in addition to Frederick Douglass, who's actually meeting the presidents. And so she has a unique position to actually be effective and to talk to them firsthand about this. And so while, you know, it's not necessarily a discourse that she starts, she's a really effective administrator in terms of getting that message out there.

And so the end of her life, I mean, she's already elderly in her 70s. She lived into her 80s. But at the end of her life, how did her life end? So she has various bouts of illness. She tries to travel locally. By this time, she's in Battle Creek, Michigan. So she's relocated again. And she really finds refuge and community in Michigan. It's a place that she really comes to love. But, you know, she's very sick.

And during this time, she continues, though, to give speeches. She continues to draw audiences and her speeches are printed very widely. But unfortunately, she dies on 26th of November, 1883, at home at around the age of 86. And she is eulogized by her many colleagues, including Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass.

So her long frenemy will come back and speak of her upon our passing. Of course, you've got to speak well of the dead, especially if you outlive them. He's like my favorite frenemy. What can be said? First of all, I'm here and you're not. But also, you are great. Yes.

But, you know, sometimes the greats need a rival to push them further on. Of course. So 1883, 86 years old. It's a long, long, extraordinary life. It's been quite the sojourn we've had, Desiree. Any final thoughts before we do our nuance window? This was amazing. You've given me a notebook and I have studied for this like I was cramming for an exam. There are five pages here. I don't even know if I've listened as well as I've written down notes about this person. I love this. The cult years are delicious.

Just like, you know, also like her touring comedian performer years. Like I feel like there's a series like Hacks that like we can watch. You know, I'm like, it's a film. It's a series. Like I want to see the like the abolitionist speaking circuit and all of the like, you know, the sort of backstage happenings. But also like...

it was cool to see how much she was able to emancipate herself in various ways over and over and over again. This is stuff that they don't teach you and I'm really in awe of. So thank you. Beautifully summarized. And also, I just love the fact that she had a Dutch accent. You just don't imagine that, right? Yeah, the whole time. The whole time. Which is like not, it's not the one that you're thinking of. No. You know what I mean? It's not the one

the one in the movie you're like who's gonna pull that one off because it's real specific real niche the nuance window time now for the nuance window this is where desiré and i listen in rapturous silence for two minutes while dr michelle preaches to us about something we need to know about sojourner truth so my stopwatch is ready please take it away dr michelle

So, you know, Sojourner Truth, she is what we know to be this really great figure. But a lot of her life exists, you know, at the edge of myth and reality. There's so much about her that we can't know, we won't ever know. Like what she really sounded like, right? A lot of that comes from the kind of narrations of others.

And because she is someone so kind of shrouded in myth, I think it's important for us to really sit with what she did and what we can know based on what she did. We know that she is a woman who was deeply religious, who stepped out on faith to self-emancipate herself, who moved about in these various kind of avenues of

to live the life that she wanted for herself as a free person. And we know that she really tried to thread this needle between a faithfulness to her race as a black woman, but also to her gender, right? As a woman who wanted to seek equality.

And this is not an easy balance to contend with at the moment at which she's doing it. Right. We have examples today of how hard that is for some people. And so there's there's so much about what she said that we'll never know for sure. But we know that she worked tirelessly on behalf of black people, on behalf of women to improve their lives. And so I think if we know that we know as much truth that is important and impossible to know.

Thank you so much, Michelle. Desiree? That was incredible and inspiring. Thank you for making this person, just breathing the sort of modern day heroine into her that she deserves. That was really cool. And yeah, I mean, just kind of remind you like that we're all history in the making.

And, you know, how you choose to focus and how you choose to build that, you know, as part of a legacy that other people 100 plus years later pick up and go like, oh, wow, I didn't know what this person was doing and how inspiring that is to what I would love to do.

That's amazing. And also, I think sometimes we don't always know what people said exactly in speeches, but you can sort of see the effect they had on people. It's almost like you can see where the ripples are in the water and the pebble is gone, but the ripples are still there. And that's quite nice that with Sojourner Truth, maybe she didn't say, ain't I a woman, but she definitely communicated that concept to people. So it's still amazing. So what do you know now?

So time now for our quiz. This is the So What Do You Know Now? This is for Desiree to see how much she has learned. And Desiree, I mean, at this point, we know that full marks is guaranteed with you. You are our quiz champion. I mean, every single time I'm trying to conjure this up, this spirit of like, I've never been lucky in anything. So like if I can keep it at the table, you know, like in Vegas and keep high rolling, I feel so great about this.

10 questions. I mean, I'm sure you'll get most of them, but let's see if 10 is doable. Let's take those takes right on down. How about we do that? All right, let's do 10 questions. Because, you know, everyone is allowed to be human. Fine. We'll start with an easy one. Question one. What was Sojourner Truth's first language?

Oh, Dutch. Very good. Okay. Question two. What did Sojourner Truth do when a cult leader, Matthias, appeared at her door saying he was Jesus Christ? She was like, right then, finally, you found me. Great. Let's go ahead and leave together because you're Christ our Savior and let's carry on. And what did she do to his feet? Oh, like wash them, kiss them. She kissed them. Yeah, yeah. Massage them forever. Like, come on.

Question three. What was the name of Sojourner's son whose freedom she successfully sued for in a court of law? Oh, Peter. It was Peter. Well done. Peter that she went to go get. Question four. Why did she adopt the name Sojourner Truth? What did it mean to her? That she was going to travel the world as she knew it and preach God's truth. Very good. Question five. Which fellow abolitionist and longtime rival did Truth first meet at the Northampton Association? Ha ha!

Sorry, she met Frederick Douglass and it's just so funny. We're like, hey, what's up? I hate you. It's a mutual respect. Question six. What is unusual about Truth's autobiography? Well, it's an autobiography written by a different person. So it's an autobiography that features two voices inside of it. And it's Olive Gilbert.

Question seven. What famous line from a speech given by Sojourner Truth at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention might have been misquoted? It's, ain't I a woman, but ain't I a woman. That's right. She might have said dis dat and de other because she did it in dialect and everybody just wrote down what they wanted. And maybe with a Dutch accent too. Yes, yes. So there we go. Question eight. What technology did Sojourner Truth use to disseminate her image? I mean, a photo. Like there's a photo. What is that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Photography, yeah. She's like,

Question nine. What was notable about Sojourner Truth's appearance and physicality? She was tall and buff. She was almost six feet tall and she was like swole because she did all the work. Yeah, she lifted heavy. And question ten. This for a perfect ten. With Sojourner Truth met three US presidents. Can you name two of them? Grant and Lincoln.

And the other one was Johnson? But whatever, Grant and Lincoln. Perfect. Well done. Desiree Birch, never in doubt, 10 out of 10. Yes! Well done. I couldn't have lost it on someone this amazing. This is revelation. Thank you so much, Michelle and Grant. You remain the best student. I mean, I would study this forever. Can I come back to Cornell, but like for no money? Yeah. Come on. Is that a thing? Don't tell him I said it. Okay.

Listener, if you want more from Desiree and Michelle, check out our episodes on Harriet Tubman and Josephine Baker, both extraordinary women. And for more abolitionist history, why not listen to our episode on Frederick Douglass, who was a very important and interesting man. No, he's incredible. And it's cool when amazing people are like, yeah, but I can take him or leave him. You know, with the other one, that's kind of a rivalry is great. Exactly. Exactly that. I'm a big Douglass fan. But yes, I think there was genuine...

Rivalry and respect. I think they're in a relationship with the Sojourner Truth. But anyway, listen to that one too. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we follow in the footsteps of another forgotten firebrand. But for now, I'm off to go and grow my beard, cover myself in gold and convince my neighbours that I am Jesus Christ. Hello. Bye.

This episode of You're Dead to Me was researched by Madeleine Bracey. It was written by Madeleine Bracey, Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Neguse and me. The audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Neguse and our executive editor was James Cook. You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4.

Join me, Rachel Burden, inside Cafe Hope. Thank you so much. Thank you. Radio 4's virtual coffee shop, where guests pop in to tell us what they're doing to make the world a better place. I really believe that food waste and food poverty shouldn't coexist. From those helping feed people to those helping them get out and about. We've now created a scheduled bus service running six days a week.

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