02/09/2023
November 26, 1883: Sojourner Truth died at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan. She was 86 years old.
Several days before Truth died, a reporter came from the Grand Rapids Eagle to interview her. "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."
More than 3,000 people crowded into the Battle Creek Tabernacle to pay their last respects to the Black heroine Uriah Smith presided at the services.
Ellen Bradbury Paulson, who attended the funeral, said of Sojourner Truth: "She was a good SDA."
She was buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek, beside other family members and many Seventh-day Adventist pioneers.
Sojourner Truth was a (the self-given name born Isabella Baumfree) abolitionist and women's rights activist.
Truth 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 1st Black woman to win such a case against a white man. Her best-known extemporaneous speech on gender inequalities, "Ain't I a Woman?", was delivered in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit Black troops for the Union Army; after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves.
HONORS:
■1862-William Wetmore Story's statue, "The Libyan Sibyl", inspired by Sojourner Truth, won an award at the London World Exhibition.
■1892-Albion artist Frank Courter is commissioned to paint the meeting between Truth and President Abraham Lincoln.
■1969-The leftist group the Sojourner Truth Organization is named after her. In folded in 1985.
■1971 – Sojourner Truth Library (STL), New Paltz State University of New York is named in honor of Sojourner Truth.
■1976–Interstate 194 was named for her in Michigan.
■1981-Truth is inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
■1981-Feminist theorist and author Bell Hooks titles her 1st major work after Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech.
■1983-Truth is in the first group of women inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in Lansing.
■1986–U.S. Postal Service issued a commemorative postage stamp honoring Sojourner Truth.
■1987-She is commemorated in a monument of "Michigan Legal Milestones" erected by the State Bar of Michigan.
■1997-The NASA Mars Pathfinder mission's robotic rover was named "Sojourner" after her.
■1998–S.T. Writes Home appears on the web offering "Letters to Mom from Sojourner Truth," in which the Mars Pathfinder Rover at times echoes its namesake.
■1999-A 12 ft high monument was built to honor her in Battle Creek, Michigan.
■1999-The Broadway musical The Civil War includes Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman. On the 1999 cast recording, it was performed by Maya Angelou
■2002-scholar Molefi Kete Asante lists Sojourner Truth on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
■Located inside the Empire State Building in New York City, named one of their houses 'The House of Sojourner Truth'
■2009-The 1st black woman honored with a bust in the US Capitol.The bust was sculpted by noted artist Artis LaneShe is also commemorated together with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer andHarriet Ross Tubman in the calendar of saints of the Episcopal Church on July 20.
■2014 – Truth was included in the Smithsonian Institution's list of the "100 Most Significant Americans".
■2014 – The asteroid 249521 Truth is named in her honor.
■2015 – A statue of Sojourner Truth is unveiled at the University of California, San Diego. The statue resides in Marshall College.
■2017 – Rutgers University renamed its College Avenue Apartments to the Sojourner Truth Apartments to honor Sojourner Truth; Sojourner Truth and her parents were owned as slaves by people related to the first president of Rutgers University.
◼As of March 2015, K-12 schools in several states, including California, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Yorkand Oregon, are named after her, as is Sojourner–Douglass College in Baltimore.
◼February 2020, a statue was unveiled at the Walkway Over the Hudson park in Highland, NY. It was created by Yonkers sculptor Vinnie Bagwell, commissioned by the New York State Women's Suffrage Commission. The statue includes text, braille and symbols. The folds of her skirt act as a canvas to depict Sojourner’s life experiences, including images of a young enslaved mother comforting her child, a slavery sale sign, images of her abolitionist peers, and a poster for a Women’s Suffrage March.
◼On August 26, 2020, on the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, a statue honoring Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony was unveiled in Central Park in New York City..The sculpture, entitled "Women's Rights Pioneers Monument", was created by American artist Meredith Bergmann.
