Program

National Votes for Women Trail

Subject

People, Site

Location

Sojourner Truth Memorial, 121 Pine St, Florence, MA 01062, USA

Lat/Long

42.33193, -72.6748

Grant Recipient

National Collaborative for Women's History Sites

At the corner of Pine and Park Streets in Florence, Massachusetts, a park and statue stand in honor of Sojourner Truth. A formerly enslaved Black woman, Truth dedicated her life to fighting for the abolition of slavery and advocating for women’s rights, including women’s right to vote prior to the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. Truth lived in Florence from 1844 to 1857, and owned a home on Park Street.

Renowned for her speaking ability, the June 21, 1851 edition of the Anti-Slavery Bugle reported on Truth’s speech before the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Ohio, describing the power and impact of her address upon those in attendance:

“One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the Convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gestures, and listened to her strong and truthful tones.”

In her speech at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention, Truth advocated for women’s place among men as equals, stating:

“I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now.”

The May 10, 1867 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Union included an account of one of the speeches Truth made at the American Equal Rights Association’s first annual meeting, held May 9 and 10, 1867 in New York City. In her speech, Truth touched upon many issues, including legal rights for women, equal pay for women, and Black women’s suffrage:

“I want women to have their rights. In the Courts women have no rights, no voice; nobody speaks for them. …

I have done a great deal of work – as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. … When we get our rights we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough of our own. …

Now, colored men have the right to vote; and what I want is to have colored women have the right to vote.”

Truth continued to advocate for women’s rights for the rest of her life. She eventually relocated from Florence to Battle Creek, Michigan, where she died on November 26, 1883. She is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Battle Creek.