Truth tribute must blend in with Walkway, state advises
The state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation is encouraging sculptors and landscape artists to visit the Walkway Over the Hudson on their own in advance of submitting proposals for a monument honoring abolitionist Sojourner Truth.
The parks office, in a written statement, said the selected design will need to blend in with the character of the popular pedestrian span, a state park that links Highland and Poughkeepsie on a former railroad trestle above the Hudson River.
“No further [formal] site visits are scheduled, but the site ... is open to the public between 7 a.m. and dusk,” the statement read. “All bidders are welcome to visit the site at their convenience.”
The state parks office has said the monument to Truth, an Ulster County native, will reflect her “strength and dedication to freedom and women’s rights” and also show “an understanding of her support for racial and gender
equality.”
Proposals, due by Nov. 27, should emphasize the period of Truth’s life when she lived in the Hudson Valley, the parks office said.
“The artwork must resonate with the site and evoke a powerful response honoring
Sojourner Truth’s accomplishments,” the statement said.
The monument will be on the Ulster County side of the Walkway Over the Hudson, which is designated to become part of the Empire State Trail.
“There is no limitation for the square feet of the total installation, except that it is kept within the boundaries identified in [the site
plan] and ... compatible with the welcome center location,” the parks office said.
The welcome cen- ter is a building that opened last year at the Highland end of the Walkway.
Artists and sculp-Truth tors can obtain a copy of the state’s request for proposals for the mon-
ument by emailing contracts@parks. ny.gov or calling (518) 486-2914.
Truth was born in Hurley in 1797 as Isabella Baumfree and was one of seven slaves owned by Johannes Hardenburgh. She was sold at about age 12 to John Ignatius Dumont, who operated a farm in what is
now the town of Esopus.
She left Esopus in 1826, after Dumont broke a promise to free her, and took her infant daughter and walked 11 miles to Poppletown, in New Paltz, where she was taken in by the VanWagenen family in a Quaker community.
In 1828, a year after New York abolished slavery, Truth became the first black woman to win a lawsuit
against a white man when she took Dumont to court for illegally selling her 5-year-old son to an Alabama slave owner.
Truth already is honored in Ulster County with a statue in the Esopus hamlet of Port Ewen and a plaque in front of the Ulster County Courthouse in Uptown Kingston, and the library at SUNY New Paltz is named for her.