![]() 18 Click here to learn more about the household of President Abraham Lincoln.Įxpressing her appreciation for Mr. 17 On October 29, 1864, Truth and Colman went to the White House. 16 Colman contacted Elizabeth Keckly- who was an African-American dressmaker working for First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln-as an intermediary, and several weeks later succeeded in requesting an audience with the president. 14 Upon her arrival, she became aggravated when she “was unable on her own to secure an appointment to visit Lincoln.” 15 Sojourner then asked “Lucy Colman-a white, Massachusetts-born schoolteacher who had become an anti-slavery lecturer”-to arrange a meeting on her behalf. 13 Truth traveled from her home in Battle Creek, Michigan to Washington, D.C. She sought commendation from the president for her efforts to aid the thousands of freedmen living in deplorable conditions in Freedman’s Village, a contraband camp, located in Arlington Heights, Virginia. 12 President Lincoln was a pivotal figure in her eyes as he had recently issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. In 1864, when Sojourner Truth was about sixty-seven years old, she made plans to visit President Abraham Lincoln. 10 She was “one of the few African American women to participate in both the abolition of slavery and women's rights movements.” 11 9 Truth stands as the only African-American woman to have achieved national recognition on a lecture platform prior to the Civil War. 8 In 1843, she received a calling from God to travel the nation (sojourn) preaching the Bible. She, nevertheless, came to be known as an impressive speaker, preacher, activist, and abolitionist. 7 As the result of her status as an enslaved person, Truth was denied access to education. 5 She was bought and sold four times and “subjected to harsh physical labor and violent punishments.” 6 Her freedom was purchased by an abolitionist family, the Van Wagenens, in 1827. Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York. 4 Their various impacts on abolition and women’s suffrage, contraband relief, civil rights, and the nature of American literature, respectively, have brought several of these figures to the White House. Notable African-American women activists such as Sojourner Truth, Elizabeth Keckly (also spelled Keckley), Rosa Parks, and Maya Angelou, have affected the national trajectory, pushing the country toward greater collective progress. As first lady, Michelle Obama used her platform in order to influence social activism her efforts were largely inspired by a lineage of African-American women before her. Obama referenced America’s past to acknowledge “the story of generations of people who felt the lash of bondage, the shame of servitude, the sting of segregation, but who kept on striving and hoping and doing what needed to be done.” 3 The perseverance and persistence of such individuals helped create the possibility for an African-American man, Barack Obama, to be elected president of the United States. Obama’s speech during the 2016 Democratic National Convention reminded the nation of a commonly unacknowledged aspect of our shared history, embedded within the structure of the White House itself: “I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves.” 2 Reflecting on this reality, Mrs. Although Michelle Obama was the first African-American first lady of the United States, African Americans have been integrally involved in the history of the White House from its initial construction in 1792.
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