Sojourner Truth
by Joanna Evans
The fight for suffrage drives a wedge between a spirited young woman and her mother. . . .
Characters
NARRATOR
REBECCA, 17 years old
MAMA, her mother
BEFORE RISE: NARRATOR enters, addresses audience.
NARRATOR: Did you know that women in the United States weren’t allowed to vote until 1920? That’s when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, extending voting rights to all women. If you do your math, you’ll find that women couldn’t vote for nearly 150 years after our nation was created out of the Revolutionary War. . .talk about injustice!
I have a very interesting story to tell you today. It’s about how women got together, starting in 1848 with the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, to fight to end slavery and secure the right to vote for all Americans.
It took a long time, but the fight they started paid off.
Two of the women at the forefront of these struggles were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Stanton. They traveled widely, meeting with women, speaking to audiences large and small, urging an end to slavery and voting rights for all. Often traveling with them was a six-foot-tall black woman, a freed slave named Sojourner Truth. Her voice was heard in every hall and at every meeting, declaring “liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof,” the words etched on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.
The end of the Civil War in 1865 brought about one of their goals: Slavery was no longer the law of the land. And in 1870, the right for black men to vote came with the passage of the 15th Amendment. However, the right for women to vote was no farther along in reality than it had been before the war.
For 70 years, women battled against the wrongfulness of the early laws that refused their rights as voting citizens. They also battled within themselves and with each other. That’s where this story begins, a year after the end of the bloodiest war in our history, the Civil War. Two generations of women find themselves in a room filled with tension, frustration, and fear. (NARRATOR exits as curtain opens.)
* * *
TIME: 1866.
SETTING: New England.
AT RISE: MAMA is in a rocking chair, knitting. REBECCA is walking around the room in a state of agitation.
REBECCA: I must go, Mama, I must!
MAMA: There is no such thing as must.
REBECCA (Vehemently): Not for you, perhaps, but there is for me!
MAMA (Warning): Watch your tongue, little girl.
REBECCA: But, Mama—I’m not a little girl any longer, and neither are you.
MAMA (Turning abruptly): What is that supposed to mean?
REBECCA: I don’t need supposedly “learned men” to think for me. You shouldn’t either. We should vote as we think best.
MAMA (Shaking head): So that’s it again. Your father and I have warned you about attending those meetings. (Shakes head) Women voting! It’s absurd. (She returns to her knitting.)
REBECCA: As absurd as holding other human beings as slaves? It’s really the same issue, Mama. Can’t you see that?
MAMA: No, I can’t. Your father had better not hear you talking like this.
REBECCA: He will and more. (Defiantly) I’m going to tour with a former slave woman named Sojourner Truth.
MAMA (Shocked): What? Never!
REBECCA: We’re going wherever people with open minds will listen. Perhaps we’ll open a few closed ones.
MAMA: I’ve heard of her. She’s been spreading lies about her treatment as a slave in New York.
REBECCA: They’re not lies. She shows her audiences the lash marks she bears from cruel beatings.
MAMA: Perhaps she needed them to make her a better worker.
REBECCA (Disgusted): I can’t believe you said that.
MAMA (Matter-of-factly): You don’t know anything about slaves or owning them.
REBECCA: To some credit of Father. Maybe he realizes they are people— men, women and children.
MAMA: She should have stayed in New York, married and had children. Then maybe she wouldn’t have been treated badly.
REBECCA: She was married and had children, but they were taken from her—sold as slaves to other rich landowners.
MAMA (Surprised): What? I don’t believe that for a minute!
REBECCA: And do you know why she was sold? Because it was the law. And it was this law that men—only white men—voted into law. (Pause) Tell me, Mama, if you were allowed to vote, would you have voted for a law that tears mothers and children apart? (MAMA is silent.) I know your answer—“I’d leave that decision to your father.” (Demanding) But I’m asking you, Mama, just you! (MAMA remains silent.) Let me ask you another question. What would you do if these same men who made it legal to sell black men, women, and children passed another law that said all white girls from the age of eleven were to be taken from their families and put into servitude until the age of eighteen?
MAMA: That’s a ridiculous notion. It would never happen.
REBECCA: Why not? When people have the power to vote, anything can happen. If there were such a law, I wouldn’t be here this minute. I would be (Throws up hands) who knows where? Sojourner Truth didn’t know where her children were, but she found them and used the law to get them back.
MAMA (Shaken): I don’t want to hear of this any longer. Besides, what kind of name is Sojourner Truth?
REBECCA: Her real name is Isabella Baumfree. She gave herself the name “Sojourner Truth” after she was freed from slavery. Then she began to travel the countryside to help other slaves to freedom. She’s letting us northerners know that the wrongs that happened in the South happened here, too, right under our very noses. She knows that all people should have the right to be free and the power to vote, and that includes women, black or white.
MAMA (Softening): Rebecca, you are beginning to scare me.
REBECCA: You should be scared, Mama. Better yet, you should be attending these meetings. Find out for yourself.
MAMA: Now you’re talking about those other two.
REBECCA: Yes, Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Their meetings call for the full rights of citizenship for every woman. Can’t you see how important this issue is, Mama?
MAMA: Frankly, no. We’ve just come through a terrible war, Rebecca. We need to rest awhile.
REBECCA: Rest? The killing may have stopped, but there isn’t any rest. There is too much injustice everywhere. And that’s what Sojourner Truth is reminding everyone. Slaves aren’t fully free yet. How could they be without an education? We aren’t free—you, me, and all women—when we don’t have the right to decide our own destiny. We’re as much slaves as Sojourner Truth ever was.
MAMA: Your father wouldn’t approve of me attending any meeting of that kind.
REBECCA (Kneeling at MAMA’s feet; pleading): Come with me tonight. Please, Mama. Sojourner Truth will be there. She has a powerful voice and a powerful message. At each meeting I see more of our neighbors there. Men attend also.
MAMA (Surprised): Men? Why?
REBECCA: I wondered that, too. It’s either that they’re spying to see how strong this movement has become, or they believe in our Constitution—freedom and justice for all. There is a prominent judge in New York who has befriended the movement. There will be more as time goes on.
MAMA: Are there other young ladies like you there?
REBECCA: More each time. Please come with me, Mama.
MAMA: I don’t know. I’ll have to give it some thought. (REBECCA stands abruptly.)
REBECCA: Fine. Make up your own mind. I have. I’m going to my room to pack. (She exits.)
MAMA (Following REBECCA): Wait, Rebecca, wait.
REBECCA (Offstage): Too late for waiting, Mama. Now is the time!
THE END
Use the passage to answer the question.
Which dramatic element best helps the reader understand the play’s central message?
(1 point)
Responses
spectacle
character
tension
language