AMHERST — Sojourner Truth was one of the most famous abolitionists of 19th century U.S. history. But Tom Goldscheider, of the David Ruggles Center in Florence, has heard of many longtime local residents who did not know the trailblazing activist lived in Florence during the abolitionist movement.
“A lot of times I’ll get people my age who grew up in Florence, went to elementary, middle and high school in Florence, lived there their whole lives and have absolutely no idea that any of this history happened,” said Goldscheider about the history of slavery abolition movements in Florence.
Goldscheider, education coordinator at the David Ruggles Center, seeks to preserve that history and share it with area residents. He spoke at the Jones Library in Amherst on Tuesday, sharing the story of Truth.
The event was organized by Janet Ryan, the library’s head of programming and outreach, to celebrate Black History Month. The library hosted several other online education sessions throughout February, with Goldscheider delivering the final event.
“I suppose it’s unfortunate that people think it should only happen in February. It should happen anytime,” Ryan said about celebrating Black history. “But it’s a great opportunity to remind the community about the importance of the contributions of everybody to our common history.”
Truth was born a slave in 1797 with the name Isabella Baumfree. Goldscheider said for the amount of hardship she faced in her life, she lived a long life, dying in 1883. He said it is a life that is impossible to capture in one talk but one that needs to be shared. “The level of horror and abuse she experienced (as a slave) is hard to fathom.”
Enslaved on a New York farm, Truth fled with her daughter in 1826, finding refuge. Those enslaved in New York who were her age were emancipated the following year.
“There was gradual emancipation, which meant that she was free because she was born before 1800, but her children were not emancipated,” said Goldscheider, noting that it is believed that Truth had five children.
Living in a time of divide in the country, through religious, abolitionist and women’s rights movements, Goldscheider said Truth found strength as a devout Methodist.
Truth had to fight for the freedom of one of her sons, Peter, who was illegally enslaved at the time, and she was also falsely accused of murder, which she fought and won in court. Truth would soon move to New York City where she lived with her son for many years, as a powerful voice in a time that Goldscheider described as one of the most tumultuous in recent history during the 1840s and 1850s.
“These are the years leading up to the Civil War and she emerged as a really important voice,” he said about Truth. “There’s a great expression that they used back in that day, called ‘oil on the water’ — she would calm a situation where otherwise people weren’t talking to each other, they were shouting at each other. She confronted many violent situations.”
After her son died on a whaling trip, Goldscheider said, Truth’s faith in God caused her to change her name to the title she is known by today and walk to the Connecticut River Valley. She would settle in Florence in the winter of 1843, joining the freshly established Northampton Association of Education and Industry (NAEI), an abolitionist community.
In Florence, Goldscheider said Truth met another prominent abolitionist figure, Frederick Douglass. Quoting Douglass, Goldscheider said, “She [Truth] was much respected in Florence for she was honest, industrious and amiable. Her quaint speeches easily gave her an audience, and she was one of the most useful members of the community in its day of small things.”
“It’s remarkable that these two giants of the 19th century history met in Florence,” Goldscheider said of Truth and Douglass.
In 1850, Goldscheider said, Truth would dedicate herself to creating a narrative of her life as a slave, something he said boosted her career significantly. He said part of the reason it is difficult to track her life is because she could not read or write, meaning there are no first-person accounts of her life. Therefore, her narrative was written in a third-person perspective by Olive Gilbert, an abolitionist and women’s rights activist.
“A few things really set this narrative apart. First and foremost, it was the narrative of a northern slave and it was the first of its kind. Frederick Douglass really inspired her to do this because he was so wildly successful with his,” Goldscheider said.
Goldscheider said the Florence community focused on the Garrisonian strategy of ending slavery, which sought to end slavery through slave narratives. He said that the community viewed “moral suasion,” showing that slavery is morally wrong, through narratives and stories was the only way to abolition.
“There was no economic argument for ending slavery. Slavery was the backbone of the American economy. King Cotton was 60% of American exports,” Goldscheider said. “The only way that you could end slavery was by touching people’s hearts, one to one, and a lot of that were these narratives that describe the horrors of slavery.”
Goldscheider said that as the1900s began, long after Truth left in 1857, Florence became a predominantly white working-class town. Amid prevalent racism and a lack of sharing slave narratives, Goldscheider said the abolitionist history was not being told.
“That history just kind of disappeared, which is what the Ruggles Center is trying to rectify,” he said.
Currently, Goldscheider said, the David Ruggles Center is attempting to apply for Florence to become a National Historic District. Additionally, the center will be celebrating Founder’s Day this April, the day it was established in 2008.
With a statue of Truth in the center of Florence at the corner of Pine and Park streets, Goldscheider said it is important to not let Truth’s history be lost.
“The hope is that even if the Ruggles Center disappears, that this history will not disappear again,” Goldscheider said.
More information can be found at the David Ruggles Center website.