Sojourner Truth : Slave, Prophet, Legend ISBN: 9780814763131 Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / New York University Press Digital rights:Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time Subjects: History;
Goes beyond the myths and legends to reveal new insights into the real life of Sojourner Truth
Many Americans have long since forgotten that there ever was slavery along the Hudson River. Yet Sojourner Truth was born a slave near the Hudson River in Ulster County, New York, in the late 1700s. Called merely Isabella as a slave, once freed she adopted the name of Sojourner Truth and became a national figure in the struggle for the emancipation of both Blacks and women in Civil War America.
Despite the dual discrimination she suffered as a Black woman, Truth significantly shaped both her own life and the struggle for human rights in America. Through her fierce intelligence, her resourcefulness, and her eloquence, she became widely acknowledged as a remarkable figure during her life, and she has become one of the most heavily mythologized figures in American history.
While some of the myths about Truth offer inspiration, they have also contributed to distortions about American history, especially about the experiences of Black Americans and women. In this landmark work, the product of years of primary research, Pulizter-Prize winning biographer Carleton Mabee has unearthed the best available sources about this remarkable woman to reconstruct the most authentic account of her life to date. Mabee offers new insights on why she never learned to read, on the authenticity of the famous quotations attributed to her (such as Ar'n't I a woman?), her relationship to President Lincoln, her role in the abolitionist movement, her crusade to move freed slaves from the South to the North, and her life as a singer, orator, feminist and woman of faith. This is an engaging, historically precise biography that reassesses the place of Sojourner Truth--slave, prophet, legend--in American history.
Fred Carleton Mabee Jr. was born on December 25, 1914 to Baptist missionary teachers in the French concession of Shanghai. He attended Bates College as an undergraduate then enrolled at Columbia University, where he wrote a dissertation that became his biography of Samuel Morse. His first book, The American Leonardo: A Life of Samuel F. B. Morse, won the Pulitzer Prize.
Since he was a conscientious objector in World War II, he did civilian public service as an attendant in a mental hospital. After the war, he spent time in Vienna as a relief worker with the American Friends Service Committee. He taught at many universities during his lifetime including Olivet College, Clarkson University, Delta College, and Keio University. He taught at the State University of New York at New Paltz from 1965 until his retirement in 1980.
His other books include The Seaway Story, Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend, and Promised Land: Father Divine's Interracial Communities in Ulster County, New York. He also wrote books about the railroads of the Hudson Valley of New York State. He died from complications of a fall on December 18, 2014 at the age of 99.
