The bronze sculpture by artist Trina Greene, called “Sojourner Truth: First Step to Freedom,” depicts Truth as she escaped slavery in 1826 while carrying her infant daughter, Sophia.
The statue recently received a warm welcome at Kingston City Hall with a reception featuring performances by the Women’s Drum Song Orchestra and actor Aixa Kendrick portraying Truth in a specially-created monologue.
"I did not know the many steps that I would take to find this word: 'freedom,'" Kendrick declared.
Sojourner Truth was a prominent abolitionist, preacher and activist around the time of the Civil War, and fought for the civil rights of both Black Americans and women. Her speeches, including her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” address, were heard across the country, but her early life was spent in Ulster County.
Former Ulster County Historian Anne Gordon says Truth was born into slavery as “Isabella Baumfree” near Esopus at the turn of the 19th Century. Truth was enslaved for roughly 30 years, and sold multiple times to farmers and estate owners she would later describe as cruel and harsh.
“A lot of people say, ‘Well, this was Northern slavery. It’s not such a big deal.’ Well what did it have in common with Southern slavery?" asks Gordon. "Children were taken from their families and sold. Wives and husbands were sold apart. People were punished in the most brutal fashion. And you can see in the papers, in the notices for runaways: ‘scars,’ ‘burns,’ ‘missing ear,’ ‘brand on cheek.’ This was Northern slavery, and it was a big deal.”
Slavery in New York was officially abolished in 1827, but two years before that, Truth’s enslaver at the time — a man named John Dumont — made her an offer: if she worked really hard, he would let her go one year early, in 1826. Gordon says Truth did just that, despite suffering a hand injury and giving birth to Sophia. But when it came time to fulfill his end of the bargain, Gordon says Dumont used these things to claim Truth wasn’t as productive as she could have been — and he denied her her freedom.
“She knew she deserved to be treated fairly, and after thinking about it, and remembering her mother saying, ‘It’s a sin to run away at night from your master,’ she decided she wouldn’t run — she would walk," says Gordon. "She wouldn’t go at night. She would go at that part of the night just before dawn. And one October morning, she took her infant and left behind her other children, two daughters and a son, and walked away."
Gordon says a local family took Truth in as a free woman and paid Dumont for the year of services he felt he was owed. Gordon says Sophia, however, was eventually returned to Dumont, because even though slavery was “abolished,” children of enslaved mothers were still expected to work for their mothers’ enslavers until their mid-to-late 20s.
Truth would later win the freedom of one of her sons. In 1828, she learned that the then 5-year-old Peter had been illegally sold into slavery out-of-state, to an owner in Alabama. She filed a lawsuit that would make its way through the New York State Supreme Court and won, making her the first Black woman to sue a white man and win.
Truth’s court documents were also on display at the reception, for one night only. New York State Archivist Brian Keough says the documents were feared lost until they were stumbled upon in a state archives folder in 2022.
“It’s so powerful to be near these documents and see where Isabella — who could not read or write — signed the habeas corpus petition with an ‘x,'" says Keough. "To be able to do that, to have the courage to challenge power in this country…it’s not African American history, it’s American history.”
The remainder of Truth’s life was dedicated to activism: she would help the Union army recruit Black soldiers during the Civil War, and help the newly-freed find jobs and restart their lives in the years after. She advocated for women’s rights and lobbied against segregation. After a life dedicated to freedom and faith, Truth died at her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.
Kingston Mayor Steve Noble says the city plans to feature the statue in group tours and other programs over the course of the next year, to help city residents connect to their local history. To start off, the city is seeking work from local artists to exhibit alongside the statue.
“We’re going to be having a new exhibition that we’re calling ‘Freedom’ in the first floor art gallery," he explains. "And it just will be a great combination of having this beautiful statue, but then also to be able to have a whole variety of other artists to show to the community what freedom means to them.”
Applications for the “Freedom” art exhibition are due October 25.
“Sojourner Truth: First Step to Freedom” is on-view at Kingston City Hall Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until August 2025. After that, it will make stops at Ulster County offices and the Newburgh Free Library before being permanently installed at SUNY New Paltz.
