MANA's BLACK LIT ALIVE! Featuring Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper—Segment #2

MANA's BLACK LIT ALIVE! is a special segment on literature produced by African American writers from the 18th century and beyond. 

Through literature, the writers, whether free or slaves, realized their identity and expressed their individuality at a time when African Americans were only viewed as mere property. 

In this podcast, MANA’s DR C presents the work of Sojourner Truth and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. 

Sojourner Truth, a former slave who was born Isabella Baumfree in Swartekill, New York in 1797. Sojourner, a mother of five children, was an author, poet, and an outspoken advocate for abolition, temperance, and civil and women's rights in the 19th century. She died in Battle Creek, Michigan on November 26, 1883. 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (September 24, 1825 - February 22, 1911) was one of the first African American women to be published in the United States. Born free in Baltimore, Maryland, she became an abolitionist, suffragist, teacher, public speaker, poet, and writer. Harper made literary history when her short story, "Two Offers" was published in the Anglo-African in 1859. This was the first short story published by a black woman. 

Listen to MANA's DR C read excerpts of Sojourner Truth's speech in the book, Cavalcade: Negro American Writing from 1760 to Present by Arthur Paul Davis and Saunders Redding, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's poems, "The Slave Auction" and "The Dying Bondman."

Feel free to follow DR C as she reads the excerpt below:

 

Sojourner Truth

As Sojourner made her way to the platform, a hissing sound made its way through the room. The kind of sound which in America only a Negro was to likely experience and understand; a sound which says, "You don't belong. You have nothing to do with this."

Unmindful and unafraid, the old black woman moved on, with slowness and solemnity, to the front. Then she laid her old bonnet at her feet and, fastening her great, speaking eyes upon the chairman, she sought permission to address the group. 

There she stands before the chairman with all those hissing sounds rushing through her ears. Does she know an ounce of fear? But after a half-century of locking horns with a hundred varieties of maniacal opposition, what mattered one more crowd. 

Who are these people anyway that they imagine they can make laws just to suit themselves? Ministers, thugs, and barbarians, they with their laws about Negroes, laws about women, laws about property, and about everything under the sun. There was only one Lawgiver. He could make these picayune creatures fly, law or no law. He was on her side assuredly. He was not on their side. 

She stands before the lady and the chair looking with confident, unafraid, expectant eyes; that lady cannot refuse her petition to speak. She cannot help herself if she wants to. The chairman turns to the audience and announces with befitting simplicity, “Sojourner Truth has a word. I beg of you to listen for a few moments.” 

“Well, chillun, what dar is so much racket, dar must be something out o’ kilter. I t’ink dat ’twixt de niggers of de Souf an’ de women at de Norf’ all a-talkin’ ‘bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all dis here talkin’ about?”

“Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to have de best place everywhere. Nobody eber helped me into carriages or ober mud puddles, or give me any best place!" 

"Look at me. Look at my arm. I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns and no man could head me—and aren’t I a woman? I have born’d five childrun and seen ‘em mos' all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard—and aren’t I a woman?”

"Den dey talks 'bout dis t'ing in de head—what dis dey call it?"

“Intellect” (whispers someone nearby).

“Dat’s it, honey—intellect. Now, what’s dat got to do wit women’s rights or niggers’ rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and your holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" 

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as man, ‘cause Christ warn’t a woman. Whar did your Christ come from? Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him!”

"If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all alone—dese together ought to be able to turn it back and get it rightside up again: and now dey is asking to do it, de men better let ‘em." 

"Bliged to ye for hearing’ me: and now old Sojourner hasn’t got nothing more to say.”

The Slave Auction 

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

The sale began—young girls were there,

Defenseless in their wretchedness,

Whose stifled sobs of deep despair

Revealed their anguish and distress.

And mothers stood, with streaming eyes,

And saw their dearest children sold;

Unheeded rose their bitter cries,

While tyrants bartered them for gold. 

And woman, with her love and truth—

For these in sable forms may dwell—

Gazed on the husband of her youth,

With anguish, none may paint or tell. 

And men, whose sole crime was their hue,

The impress of their Maker's hand,

And frail and shrinking children too,

Were gathered in that mournful band.

Ye who have laid your loved to rest,

And wept above their lifeless clay,

Know not the anguish of that breast,

Whose loved are rudely torn away. 

Ye may not know how desolate

Are bosoms rudely forced to part, 

And how a dull and heavy weight

Will press the life-drops from the heart. 

The Dying Bondman

Life was trembling, faintly trembling

On the bondman's latest breath,

And he felt the chilling pressure

Of the cold, hard hand of Death.

He had been an Afric chieftain,

Worn his manhood as a crown;

But upon the field of battle

Had been fiercely stricken down.

He had longed to gain his freedom.

Waited, watched and hoped in vain,

Till his life was slowly ebbing—

Almost broken was his chain. 

By his bedside stood the master,

Gazing on the dying one,

Knowing by the dull grey shadows

That life's sands were almost run.

"Master," said the dying bondman,

"Home and friends I soon shall see;

But before I reach my country,

Master write that I am free;

"For the spirits of my fathers

Would shrink back from me in pride,

If I told them at our greeting

I a slave had lived and died;

"Give to me the precious token,

That my kindred dead may see—

Master! write it, write it quickly!

Master! write that I am free!"

At his earnest plea the master

Wrote for him the glad release,

O'er his wan and wasted features

Flitted one sweet smile of peace.

Eagerly he grasped the writing;

"I am free!" at last he said.

Backward fell upon the pillow,

He was free among the dead.