EVENT RECALLS LIFE OF ACTIVIST
Former slave’s remarkable life remembered with walk to courthouse where she won her son’s freedom
KINGSTON, N.Y. >> Dozens of people from across Ulster County followed in the footsteps of Sojourner Truth on Saturday as they made the trek from Port Ewen to the Ulster County Courthouse, where Truth fought for the return of her son Peter, before gathering at the Old Dutch Church for a re-enactment of her famous “Ain’t I A Woman,” speech.
The event was part of a month-long series of programs and activities organized by the A.J. Williams Myers African Roots Library to celebrate Black History Month, which runs through Feb. 28.
For Sara Sheppard, who attended the event with her husband, Ezra Silverman, and their two young sons, Koa Sheppard-Gould and Odys Sheppard-Gould, it was an opportunity to connect with the abolitionist and women’s rights activist.
“As a black family and a multi-racial family, we wanted to feel a little of what she felt,” said Sheppard, of New Paltz. As a first-grade teacher at Duzine Elementary School in New Paltz, she said she hoped to show to her students that she is “trying to walk the walk.”
Truth was born Isabella Bomfree, a slave in what is now the town of Hurley in 1797.
Inside the Old Dutch Church, on Main and Wall streets, Deborah Zuill, a Sojourner Truth re-enactor, stood before the group of
“I have gone and done many things in my lifetime. But I’m gonna tell ya, the most amazin’ visit that I had was when I went to the White House.”
— Deborah Zuill
men, women and children who attended the event and delivered the speech Truth
had delivered at the 1851 Women’s Convention, in Akron, Ohio, asking, as she did then, “Ain’t I A Woman?”
And as Truth, Zuill answered questions from a “reporter” about her accomplishments, from winning
a lawsuit to regain custody of her son, who had been illegally sold to an out-of-state slaveholder, to forcing the integration of trolleys in Washington, D.C.
“I have gone and done
many things in my lifetime,” she said. “But I’m gonna tell ya, the most amazin’ visit that I had was when I went to the White House,” she said, telling those gathered how she had tea and cookies
with President Abraham Lincoln. “The same individual who signed the ending of slavery was just as kind and courteous as he could be,” she said.
Event organizer Frank Waters said the goal of the
walk was not only to help connect people to Truth, but also to one another, in the hope that people would both appreciate all that they have, but also all that others have gone through.