The Sojourner Truth Award is given each year by the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs, Inc. as a reminder of the endless effort which freedom demands of those who would be free and to recall the fact that slavery comes in many forms: enveloping the spirit as well as the body.
Sojourner Truth, born into slavery in 1797 in Mister County, New York, was one of ten or twelve children of James and Betsy, slaves of Colonel Ardenburg Hurley. She was next to the youngest child. During her life she saw six of her brothers and sisters-all the other children had been sold into slavery.
Named Isabella at birth, she chose the name Sojourner Truth in 1828 during her first year of freedom. This was the year she decided that "God calls me to greater tasks"; she left her employment with Van Wagener, never to return.
She traveled throughout the land teaching and fighting for justice. Her journeys included a visit with President Abraham Lincoln on October 29, 1864.
In December 1865, following the close of the Civil War, Sojourner was in Washington and received government authority to stop groups of people who desired to steal back previous slaves into an unofficial kind of slavery. From contacts with Sojourner in her official capacity with the government, freed Negroes learned how to act and to whom to go when they desired protection and assistance from their government.
Due to an incident that happened in the fall of 1865, while working by orders of the War Department along with Surgeon Gluman in charge of Freedman's Hospital, and more specifically with Mrs. Laura Haviland, the Jim Crow rule in street cars was abolished in Washington, D.C. and a noticeable change in the attitude of most of the drivers toward Negro riders.
Courage was born of prayer, faith and feasting on inner thoughts heard from the mouths of learned religious and intellectual persons she knew.
In the struggle for the ballot for women, Sojourner was a well-known leader. She feared nothing, least of all physical harm and death. She lived only to help make the world better. Her mission in life was to have the world converted to the Christian Faith.
Sojourner Truth fought for unpopular causes. On her road to freedom, she chose to turn away from persons and movements which still clung to the past and toward those movements which meant a struggle for freedom and the future. She taught, the government could give us liberty, but we must make ourselves free.
Sojourner Truth sought those persons whose bent was toward religion. In the religious community she acquired distinction and fame.
Sojourner Truth, at the age of eighty-six died in Battle Creek, Michigan, November 26, 1883. Death brought to a close an illustrious life. History records the story of a woman who appeared ahead of her time and her people in vision, understanding, ambition, enlightenment, wisdom, and sophistication. Faith in God as the only Master worthy of her loyalty, was her inner light and guide.
Each year, we recall the life of Sojourner Truth to remind each man in his generation that he, too, may be released from bondage. Our mission is to serve each other, to help each other, to free each other.
