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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
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. 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. What are your emotions when you hear the word Sojourner Truth? She's one of the big ones that you learn about so early on. And then when everyone's like, what do you know about Sojourner Truth? You're like, I don't know.
She's dope, dude. You know, because you're like, OK, you know, Harry Tubman did more of the gun wielding. Sojourner 2 did a lot of like the speaking and stuff. There's stuff that she did that I vaguely remember. But like, I'm excited to find out the cool biopic biopic biopic. I don't know how we say that word.
Biopic for me, but yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think it's biopic, but some people say biopic and it sounds like a, it sounds bionic. 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 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? 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. 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? Dutch is her primary first language. 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? Elizabeth and James live on their own in a cottage where they farm a small tract of land that was rented from the Hardenbergs. 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. It's a horrible, horrible childhood and she was sold to an English-speaking family, the Neelys, and she didn't speak English. Right, that's correct. So she's 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.
Oh, my God. How weird. Some English speaking people were weird about somebody else not speaking their language. Right. Being like, what's this weird? Right. But her father, so he travels a distance and actually implores the Neelys to sell Isabella. Oh. And so she sold again in 1809 to a tavern keeper called Martinus Shriver. Oh.
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. We get a marriage for Isabella. 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.
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. 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.
Yeah, Michelle, the state of New York abolishes slavery or what is the definition? Yes, that's absolutely right. Desiree Birch, 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. 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. 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.
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. Isabella tries to bargain for her own emancipation in 1826.
an early emancipation, which Dumont grants. However, when that date arrives, Dumont went back on his word. And so she sets a time. She works until the autumn of 1826. And then she decides that now is the time. 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 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. 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...
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. 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 in the state and she is victorious.
So in 1828, the judge rules, quote, 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. The amazing thing really now is that Isabella is free. She goes off to New York and she now goes to work for white families, but wealthy families as a free woman. One family is called the Latourettes, and they're very religious, aren't they? The Latourettes 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 closely related.
I worship that as well, so I never get anything done. Right? And so Isabella begins to preach with this club as well. 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. I mean, if you hadn't told me that, if he just showed up at her door, I was like, ah, Jehovah's Witnesses, pretend you're not home. But...
But they definitely never claim 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? Yeah.
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.
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. Yes! 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 Isabella is trying to preach, Michelle, but is not allowed to preach in this cult. So that's not ideal.
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. The commune collapses in 1834, Desiree, so only a year later. But Isabella stays loyal to Matthias.
She lends him money. 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 up 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 stay. Oh, no.
I love this and I hate this. 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. Important thing to say here, Michelle, I think, is that after the collapse of the commune, Sojourner Truth
emerges as an identity? Yes. So on June 1st, 1843, the day of Pentecost, she claims to have experienced the Holy Spirit calling her to travel and preach. 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. 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?
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 and 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. And Frederick Douglass, we've done an episode on it. Listeners, if you want to check that out, it's a really good one. Douglass is a renowned orator. He's a brilliant speaker and incredibly articulate. You might assume that Douglass and Sojourner Truth get on really well, but there's sort of tension, Michelle. Yeah.
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 Douglass 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. She would publicly point out his mistakes 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, in the truth, Daz Koff
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, Sojourner 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 the way 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. She's able, from the money sold on the book, to buy her own home, actually. So in the 1850s, with the book out, Sojourner Truth went on a book tour. Is she famous by this point? Is she renowned? Are people flocking to go and see her?
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 and 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.
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 very serious things. 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. 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 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? 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. 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. And so Gage here is making a specific point about the intersection of a kind of women's ideology or political orientation and 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, right?
She does so in adopting a dialect that was not truth. 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'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. 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. She's collecting food for troops.
She's using her photographs to bring awareness to the war cause and really trying to popularize the notion that this is an important endeavor 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... I'm not leaving a witness. I'm just asking. 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. 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
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 wanted her to be up in there.
been 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. 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 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 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. Yeah, well, yeah. He's like my favorite frenemy. You know, what can be said? First of all, I'm here and you're not. But also, you were great. The nuance windows!
Time now for the Nuance Window. This is where Desiree 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
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 possible 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. 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? 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!
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