Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer
20 July 1848
Four American Pioneers of Black Rights and Women's Rights
The Episcopal Church has tentatively added to its Calendar four
American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black
emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for
commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights
Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, 19-20 July 1848.
Sojourner Truth (26 November 1883)
Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in
New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker
Abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder
of a shelter for homeless women. When she was travelling, and
someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a
citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her
surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His
name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black
and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking
against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The
speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It
was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing
that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to
shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She
replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society
had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the
Latter Exodus."
Harriet Ross Tubman (10 March 1913)
Harriet Ross was born in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed
by the Bible narrative of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of
slavery in Egypt, and it became the basis of her belief that it was
God's will to deliver slaves in America out of their bondage, and
that it was her duty to help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped
to Canada, but returned to help others escape. Working with other
Abolitionists, chiefly white Quakers, she made at least nineteen
excursions into Maryland in the 1850's, leading more than 300 slaves
to freedom. During the War of 1861-5, she joined the Northern Army
as a cook and a nurse and a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that
freed over 750 slaves. After the war, she worked to shelter orphans
and elderly poor persons, and to advance the status of women and
blacks. She became known as "the Moses of her People."
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (26 October 1902)
Mrs. Stanton was born in 1815 and reared in the Presbyterian Church.
She found the Calvinist doctrine of predestination dismaying, and
rebelled against it. She denounced the clergy of her day for not
upholding women's rights, but as she travelled giving speeches on
the subject, she found no lack of pulpits available to her. She
undertook to write what she called a Women's Bible. It never got
beyond a series of notes on selected Biblical passages. For
example, she quotes the passage in Genesis where we are told that
Noah's Ark had only one window, and remarks that if a woman had been
consulted, the Ark would have been better designed.
Reading Mrs. Stanton's life and works, I have an uncomfortable
feeling that she was interested in "religion" only as a potential
ally or opponent in her campaign for women's political equality. I
once spent some time in a congregation where the preacher never
mentioned God or Christ except when they could be quoted in support
of the preacher's political agenda. It was not a good experience.
For me, reading about Mrs Stanton moves me, not to say, "Lord, give
me the grace to follow you, as you did to Mrs. Stanton," but rather,
"Lord do I do that? Do I think of you as there to carry out my
agenda? If so, then help me to recognize it and to stop it."
Meanwhile, if we think that the abolition of slavery and the
recognition of women's right to own property are in accordance with
justice, and are accordingly good things, then we can thank God for
accomplishing good through Mrs Stanton and others. "It is enough to
be sure of the deed. Our courteous Lord will deign to redeem the
motive." (Julian of Norwich)
Amelia Jenks Bloomer (30 December 1894)
Amelia Jenks was born in New York in 1818, reared as a Presbyterian,
and as a young woman became an activist for the anti-slavery,
anti-alcohol, and women's votes movements. One of her concerns has
made her name a part of the language. In her day, women's fashions
encouraged tightly laced waists, involving severe health problems.
(The fashions were denounced in 1728
by William Law (9 April).)
The fashion also called for skirts trailing the ground, an
arrangement that made it difficult to keep the skirts reasonably
clean, especially since the streets were full of horses. Mrs.
Bloomer designed a women's costume featuring what are known as
Turkish pants, or harem pants (remember the television show I Dream
of Jeannie), loose baggy trousers gathered into tight bands at the
ankles and waist. Over these she wore a mid-calf-length skirt. It
seems a thoroughly modest garb, but it excited indignation and
ridicule. (At least well into the 1940's, women's underpants, and
women's baggy outer pants worn for athletics, were known as
"bloomers.")
Mrs. Bloomer and her husband eventually settled in Council Bluffs,
Iowa, where she worked to promote churches, schools, libraries, and
progressive and reform movements. On one occasion she said:
"The same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in
His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of women,
and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was in the
beginning."
Prayer (traditional language)
O God, whose Spirit guideth us into all truth and maketh us
free: Strengthen and sustain us as thou didst thy servants
Elizabeth, Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and
courage to stand against oppression and injustice and all that
worketh against the glorious liberty to which thou callest
all thy children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who liveth
and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever
and ever.
Prayer (contemporary language)
O God, whose Spirit guides us into all truth and makes us free:
Strengthen and sustain us as you did your servants Elizabeth,
Amelia, Sojourner, and Harriet. Give us vision and courage to
stand against oppression and injustice and all that works
against the glorious liberty to which you call all your
children; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns
with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
Psalm 146
Wisdom 7:24-28
Luke 11:5-10 (Bap)