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A Princeton professor examines what the slave-turned-activist symbolizes to American society
WHO HASN'T HEARD the words attributed to the former slave Sojourner Truth: "And ar'n't I a woman?"
She is remembered as a 19th-century black woman who demanded recognition, who reportedly ripped open her dress at a public meeting to force white feminists to confront her humanity. She has become an icon, her words and image blazoned on Tshirts and posters.
But who was the woman behind the symbol? And why has she become so important to contemporary society?
A book due out this month by the Princeton University historian Nell Irvin Painter-Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symboltries to answer those questions. The last few years have witnessed a flurry of academic interest in Sojourner Truth, with two scholarly biographies and a new edition of the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, her life story that she originally dictated to a friend. But scholars who have seen Dr. Painter's manuscript say that its readability and its breadth-ranging from psychological theory to an analysis of 19th-century photographs to a survey of over 100 years of writing about the former slavewill make it stand out.
W. W. Norton & Company is betting on it. The publisher has scheduled a tour of more than 20 cities for Dr. Painter; press representatives say that colleges and universities have been calling them, offering to finance her appearance.
'HER WORK CAN'T BE IGNORED'
That is due in part to who Nell Painter is. She has held many of the prestigious posts in her profession and served on most of the important editorial boards of her field.
"I know her as a friend and a black woman scholar who-because her work can't be ignored-makes it easier for other black women to have access to scholarly attention. She's a pioneer," says Nellie Y. McKay, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Dr. Painter started her career as a Southern historian. She has written on black migration from the South to Kansas after Reconstruction, white plantation mistresses, politics in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Hosea Hudson, a black Southern Communist.
At first, Sojourner Truth didn't seem to fit those interests. Born a slave in...