Bill to be passed to honor Sojourner Truth

Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Alien Specter and Representative Sheik Jackson Lee announced that the U.S- Senate has approved legislation to honor women’s suffragist leader Sojourner Truth- The bill, which was sponsored in the House of Representatives by Rep. Jackson Lee calls on the Joint Committee on the Library to accept the donation of a statue depicting Sojourner Truth and display it in the United States Capitol Building. Senators Clinton and Specter were the sponsors of companion legislation in the Senate, The bill, which was approved by the House on December 18, 2005, was approved unanimously by the Senate and will now head to the President for his signature-The bill calls on the Joint House-Senate Committee on the Library to accept a donation of a bust of Sojourner Truth, no later than, 2 years after the date of the enactment of the bill, to be displayed in a suitable permanent location in the U.S. Capitol Building.“It is past time that we honor a woman who, despite all of the hardships she faced, was a tireless advocate for women’s rights. Sojourner Truth deserves to be represented in the United States Capitol Building along with others who have been recognized for the work in the women’s suffrage movement,” said Senator Clinton. “I am very pleased that the House and now the Senate have approved this legislation so that we can establish a permanent memorial in the U.S. Capital to his true American hero and role model.”“Sojourner Truth was a leader in the abolitionist movement and a groundbreaking speaker on behalf of equality for women,” Senator Specter said, “I am pleased to see her honored for her contributions to the women’s suffrage movement with a monument in the United States Capitol Building.”“The recognition by the Congress that Sojourner Truth, one of the nation’s greatest women’s rights leaders, should be honored in the Capitol is both well deserved and long overdue. Her great advocacy on behalf of women, despite all the hardships she faced, maizes Sojourner Truth truly deserving of representation along side the other the great suffragist depicted in the Portrait Monument. So speaks the Congress of the United States. Passage of this important measure also is a fitting tribute to Dr. C. Delores Tucker, past President of the NCBW whose efforts helped make this achievement possible,” stated Congresswoman Sheik Jackson Lee.Isabelk Baumfree was bom into slavery in New York’s Hudson Valley in 1797. After gaining her freedom in 1826 she moved to New York City and by 1843 had changed her name to Sojourner Truth. For much of her adult life she traveled the country preaching for human rights. After attending the 1850 National Woman’s Rights Convention, Truth made woman’s suffrage a focal point of her speeches, portraying women as powerful, independent figures. Her most famous speech, “Ain’t I A Woman,” given at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akton, Ohio, has become a classic text on women’s rights. Sojourner Truth was a powerful figure within several additional national social movements, including the abolition of slavery, the rights of freedmen, temperance, prison reform, and the termination of capital punishmentSojourner Truth died November 26,1883 in Battle Creek, Michigan. She has since been inducted into both the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame (1983) and the National Women’s Hall of Fame (1981) in Seneca Falls, New York- A United States Postage Stamp was dedicated in her honor at the Sojourner Truth Library in New Paltz, New York, on February 5,1986.
Pictured Above: Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton