Week 1 of my visit to Poughkeepsie, NY, to discover and walk in Iya Sojourner Truth’s footsteps, see the land and meet the people who now share a landscape she once knew.
June 1, I will be traversing her Freedom Walk. I have been posting short videos on FB.com/wandaspicks
Field Notes
Well, I’ll tell ‘ya, June is a special month, not because it’s my birth month; however, that is something, but it is the month that holds our collective “freedom.” Juneteenth is a time when we count all our blessings those of us whose ancestors recent and past knew what it meant to not have rights to one’s person. Can you imagine a time when taking one’s freedom was criminal behavior? How can you steal what is yours? Even animals, some we call pets, have agency. Training does not eliminate certain innate proclivities – even the more trampled souls sometimes have a little bit left to stir or bang or holler in the chamber beyond reach. The living don’t just roll over and throw up its legs.
Well maybe some of us do—those of us lost to ourselves but not Sojourner Truth. She grabbed her baby, Abigail and a knapsack and walked through the woods along the Hudson River to freedom. When her owner reneged on his promise to free her a year early for such fine service, he knew her worth and so did she, she left. Where there is no trust, there is nothing.
Watch this moving ceremony and dedication to Truth, of three miles of the 11, almost 12 miles she walked from Kingston (Ulster County through the forest summit at Shaupeneak Ridge to Esopus, New York where she found refuge: https://www.scenichudson.org/explore-the-valley/our-parks/sjttrail/I This is where I plan to walk on June 1 at sunrise. I hope I can walk the entire 11 almost 12 miles. I will let you know how it goes. If you know anyone along my route introduce me: souljourning4truth@gmail.com as I “souljourney” through Kingston, New Paltz, Ulster County, New York State, Northampton, Massachusetts, Battle Creek, (Harmonia), Michigan.
At 29, Truth decided that it was time to leave. She wouldn’t get free waiting for someone to give it to her; she had to free herself. It wasn’t an easy decision. God told her to leave. The memo didn’t say where she was to go, just that it should be in the daytime and that she should walk, not run. She was to be seen leaving. Perhaps she was to be a role model. This happened October 1826. Later, she decided June 1, was her freedom birthday. She did not want anything from enslavement— first went the slave name.
I too got a memo—started as a poem, then grew into this desire to follow Truth’s Freedom Trail. A friend called it a hidjra—I guess it is. As I step towards retirement age and think about legacy and what’s left of this walk—my life, Truth faces me. And so I read many books about her life, starting with her Narrative—her life as told to. . . later released as her “Life Book” which includes news articles, an essay by Harriett Beecher Stow, autographs of President Lincoln and other celebrities, even her own signature— As mentioned in other columns her Life Book is part of a lovely series of 19th Century African American Women Writers, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr., Schomburg Library, Oxford University Press. It is a wonderful series and gives Truth’s life and work context.
However, it is this final biography I am reading presently by Dr. Margaret Washington, “Sojourner Truth’s America” that is I think the seminal scholarly work because in this book, Washington, shows us Truth the African woman, Truth the survivor of tremendous trauma—mother and fatherloss, brutality—physical and spiritual and emotional. Imagine a child whose father figure is a man who beats and rapes her?
Nell Irvin Painter’s text, “Sojourner Truth,” is wonderful as well. It is a great companion to the “Narrative.” In it, Painter’s analysis allows the reader to go deeper into Truth’s “Narrative”. Her guidance allows us to read between the lines and note certain omissions and implications based in what is silenced as only she can. It is a thoughtful and enlightening book.
The third book, I’d recommend, not because I liked it a lot, but for its perspective, is Carlton Mabee with his daughter, Susan Mabee Newhouse’s “Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend.” What the author, C. Mabee, who was faculty at SUNY New Paltz and was a native of New York State, set out to do was to document the facts of the story. It was this cold reading that leaves one bereft, as if Truth is once again being sold—the auction block, his-story. Truth brilliance takes backseat to proof, when as Painter and Washington, even Truth shows, there are nuances text cannot capture nor can we, since none of us walked in her shoes when she had them.
I find Iya Truth an inspiration. I think all of us need inspiration—the air that fills our lungs in closed rooms. I am finding this in her example, in her story. Sometimes we need something tangible to hang onto—we are flesh and flesh needs other flesh – even if the flesh has returned to the earth and is dust. I am looking forward to meeting Truth’s people—her allies and other who are living in a land where she walked.
My journey takes me also to Northampton where she lives almost ten years in an intentional community where people ate fresh foods, drank water, bathed, abstained from drinking and smoking – although sexual relationships were not discouraged (smile).
Truth was a woman who loved smoking her pipe and had a great sense of humor. Her relationship with her creator was comfortable, like one has with a trusted friend. She was forgiving and grew in her understanding of life as she lived it. She was ever-evolving and growing into a better she. It is unfortunate that for 19th Century Black women, particularly those women who served their communities as she did, and many others, they struggled with poverty. If it were not for the companions and supporters Truth asked to help her and willingly did, she would have struggled more—but it is a shame that after laboring all her youth for another, she had accumulated no wealth as her white sisters who could stay single and live their lives freely could. It is the same now.
No one works until she is 65 because she wants to. I am able to do this walk, this “Souljourney for Truth” because people are supporting my vision. So far I have raised $1,739.00 on GoFundMe and about $350 in checks and money orders and cash. The in-kind support is also phenomenal, such as my hosts here in Poughkeepsie, New York, Iya Jo and her beloved husband, Daniel, who are feeding me and allowing me to stay in their home for a month. This is huge! I couldn’t have afforded to do this walk, if I hadn’t had such good fortune. Funny how life works—you do a good deed and then someone does you a good turn 15 years later.
It is a Katrina Story—“Words Upon the Waters,” fundraisers for survivors in New Orleans and Mississippi and Texas and Alabama. Iya Jo contributed to the book. We hosted fundraisers with the book for 7-8 years to follow. The funds still go to projects that support people with disabilities in the Gulf Region, especially Mississippi. Karla Brundage, WO2WA Director, who introduced me to Iya Jo, said that this publishing model inspired her work in the years to come. Who would have known? Now I have co-edited my first anthology with Sara Biel, founder of Colossus Press. This third edition is “Colossus: FREEDOM.” The book addresses the impact of the carceral system on all of us. The writers are survivors, those who have harmed, families and children and friends.
I don’t know if any of you has rented a car recently, but it is crazy astronomical, with cost ranging from $90-200 a day. Even Zipcar is $101 a day. I am on the bus and train and foot and bike (if Daniel can repair it). I am distancing and certainly masking and washing my hands a lot.
It’s all good. We have to make our path by walking it. I have already walked a distance. I hope there are many more miles left, but I am happy whatever the eventual outcome which I will learn soon enough.
I walked from the younger Truth statue to the elder one. It was about 4-5 miles. The Walkway which follows the old train route, led me to the plaza where Truth draws all eyes. This weekend for Pinkster, there will be a program, Sat., June 4, 2 p.m. with Congolese drummers and at 2:45 p.m. ET, there will be a play, Raw Truth: A Short Play about Sojourner Truth. At 4 p.m. there will an online program, “Seeking Truth, A VR/Metaverse Experience. Visit http://www.transartinc.org/pinkster
Sunday, June 5 there is Pinkster Sunday at the Old Dutch Church, 272 Wall Street, Kingston, NY, 10:30 AM performance and discussion; 1 p.m. — Pinkster Faith Walk. The walk is followed from 1-6 p.m. “Pinkster Day Party & Market at Academy Green Park, 238 Clinton Avenue, Kingston, NY
June 8, 2022 at the Rosedale Theatre, 408 Main Street, Rosedale, NY, 7 p.m. Haile Gerima will be at a screening of his film classic, “Sankofa” (1993). It is a free event.
4