When Sojourner Truth left Ulster County, it was with a vow never to return. Being enslaved in New York in the 19th century may have been different than it had been farther south, but it was every bit as brutal. It may have been that Truth intended never to return to New Paltz, specifically; that’s where the future abolitionist and suffragette grew up, although the specific area is now part of Esopus. Given the difficulties that have arisen with getting a statue of Sojourner Truth sited in modern-day New Paltz, one might imagine that the vow is still in force, even more than 140 years after Truth’s death in Battle Creek, Michigan. A statue designed in the hopes that it would bought by state taxpayers for placement along the Empire State Trail wasn’t selected in 2018, but was nevertheless completed by sculptor Trina Greene after board members of the SUNY New Paltz Foundation took an interest in placing it on campus. Six years later that same statue will soon be taken out of a warehouse, to be exhibited at the city hall in Kingston — the first stop on a sojourn of its own. What happened in the meantime is a tale that contains echoes of Sojourner Truth’s life itself.
The statue Greene created depicts Isabella Baumfree — the name Truth had borne since birth — walking to freedom in 1826, carrying youngest child Sophia. Manumission in New York was a gradual process that was to end in 1827, but Baumfree’s master Dumont had promised freedom a year early and then reneged on that promise. Bolstered by prayer, Baumfree left some weeks later with Sophia, who was still nursing, and was taken in by a Mr. and Mrs. Van Wagenen. The story of Dumont coming after the prized “Bell” was recounted in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, which the illiterate former slave dictated to Olive Gilbert, who wrote and edited it:
When her master saw her, he said, ‘Well, Bell, so you’ve run away from me.’ ‘No, I did not run away; I walked away in the day-light, and all because you had promised me a year of my time.’ His reply was, ‘You must go back with me.’ Her decisive answer was, ‘No, I won’t go back with you.’ He said, “Well, I shall take the child.” This also was stoutly negatived.
Only when Van Wagenen agreed to hire Isabella and Sophia for the months until emancipation — at a cost of $25 — did Dumont relent.
Pedestal remains unoccupied
It was Dan Torres — then a member of the New Paltz Town Board — who pitched that particular design to Greene, who previously created a statue of a young Isabella Baumfree which is displayed in Esopus. Torres said in an interview in 2021 that those first steps were a “triumphant moment” in large part because Truth walked away, rather than ran. The idea fired the sculptor’s imagination enough that another patron was sought, after it became clear that the Empire State Trail statue of Truth would be created by a Brooklyn sculptor and installed on the Walkway over the Hudson. Donald Christian, then the president of SUNY New Paltz, was fresh from removing the names of local slave owners from a dormitory complex on campus, saw this statue as potentially providing a capstone to plans for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Sojourner Truth Library. Funds were raised for its creation, and the pedestal intended for the statue was constructed in front of the library. Three years later, it remains unoccupied.
As university officials geared up for the anniversary celebration slated for September, 2021, part of that planning was to reach out to the chair of the black studies department to find out if it would be possible to book for the event Voices of Unity, a gospel choir that’s been performing on campus since 1980. This was the first official notice that faculty members had given about this statue at all. In a statement, they indicated their displeasure with only being included for a “performative” aspect, and not in the substantive conversations about this iconic African American woman; they declined to participate at all. Professors of women’s studies and history echoed concerns about the process.
For much of the 56 years between walking to freedom and passing away, Sojourner Truth was sustained by sales of The Narrative of Sojourner Truth and photographs of the abolitionist which were emblazoned with the message, “I sell the shadow to support the substance.” Black professors in 2021 had no interest in providing the shadow in the form of a choir performance, while not participating in the substance of planning such an event in the first place. Their voices were heard: that unveiling did not take place, and the statue itself was placed into storage until someone could figure out what to do with it. While it’s not clear what the final cost was, in 2021 Barbara Caldwell — the program director for donor engagement for the foundation — said that the fundraising goal was $75,000.
The fate of this statue
That was the state of affairs when Darrell Wheeler replaced Donald Christian as president of SUNY New Paltz. Recognizing the complexity of the situation, Wheeler opted to take plenty of time to listen to various stakeholders, individually and in groups, before reaching a decision on the fate of this statue. The president was extended invitations to be interviewed on the subject several times starting in November of 2023, and finally agreed to sit down the morning of May 2.
As Wheeler understands it, the controversy here is not about the statue itself, but rather the process of its acquisition. Finding a solution required listening to those who were included in that process, and also those who were not. Also included was Barbara Allen, a sixth great-grandchild of Truth’s who spoke on campus last year. Allen was taken to view the statue, upon which very few eyes had been laid. Wheeler had those conversations and meetings over many months, carefully chronicling the varied responses in one of the notebooks the president uses as part of the job of running this university. Those notebooks, which Wheeler has used since first being trained as a social worker, are a record of “thoughts and feelings about decisions, all filtered through the lens that’s called ‘me’.” Inside the cover of each one used at this job, Wheeler tapes a portion of the university’s mission statement, including a reminder that the university should be a value added to the community.
Throughout the process, the president said, stakeholders “heard from me directly.” That included meeting with several smaller groups before it was announced that this statue would be sent on a sojourn of its own. The intent was to ensure that everyone felt included in those discussions, such that they would support the process this time even if they didn’t agree with the outcome.
Among those stakeholders was the sculptor, Trina Greene, who is sympathetic to those faculty members who should have been included in the initial discussions but were not. “I feel they should be included,” Greene said.
One idea Wheeler came away with was just how painful life in Ulster County had been for Isabella Baumfree, who while enslaved was assaulted in all senses of the word, who had an unknown number of children taken away to the slave market themselves, and whose child Peter was illegally sold to a slaveholder in Alabama. The ensuing court case was the first of its kind to be successful against a white man in the state; Peter was eventually returned, but had been sorely abused in the meantime. It was in 1843 that Isabella Baumfree became Sojourner Truth, and left New York. What followed were some years of consorting with luminaries like Frederick Douglass and leaders like Abraham Lincoln; Truth also was entangled in the false dichotomy of whether women should be given the right to vote first, or “the negro.” Sojourner Truth lived in places including western Massachusetts and ultimately Battle Creek, and at times traveled extensively on speaking tours.
The statue’s tour
That travel of Sojourner Truth will be echoed in the movements of this particular statue of Sojourner Truth: first to the city hall in Kingston, then to an Orange County location, possibly the Newburgh Free Library. It’s supposed to be returned to the campus for display in 2026, but the president is open to extending this sojourn if other locations are identified.
In Kingston, it was the city’s director of arts and cultural affairs who worked to provide that first stop on this statue’s tour. Aware of the controversy and also African American, Kitt Potter said, “In a 25-year career, I’ve been left out of stuff. I understand the intentions were beautiful, but [faculty members] renounced it and asked for the stop of the installation. I could understand it was very painful for Dr. Wheeler to inherit this.” Potter recalls having committed similar omissions, and how bad it felt to be “called out on it.”
Nevertheless, Potter’s feelings about Sojourner Truth and this statue are unambiguously positive. “Trina Greene speaks the truth,” Potter said, noting that the piece in Esopus that Greene made has an opening in the dress through which scars of whippings can be seen. “We won the Civil War, and our archives are intact,” which means that in Kingston historical records the brutality of human enslavement itself is laid bare. Potter hopes that having this statue in Kingston will inspire students to “look for Sophia” in the historic record, to find out more about the life of this child who was carried to freedom in the arms of a loving mother. It is known that Sophia also died in Battle Creek, and that the grave was unmarked until a descendant rectified that in 2016. Potter also believes that more can be discovered about the number and lives of Sojourner Truth’s other children.
Wheeler hopes that this sojourn will give time to lift up the “truth” that is also part of that name. “Even without the statue, the problems with process are still here,” the president said.
On that point, Dr. Weldon McWilliams agrees. McWilliams is currently the chair of the black studies department, and like Wheeler came into that position after the statue controversy emerged. In a statement released from that office, faculty members recalled that in 2021 they “could not celebrate the statue’s unveiling knowing that we had been excluded from the important conversations.” Also in that statement the faculty observed that “we do not see the delaying of the statue’s arrival as a compromise, nor was it presented as such. The reasoning for its two-year travel time is still not clear, but the fact that the statue will ultimately rest in a place where so many people were excluded from the process of its creation, construction and implementation remains just as problematic” to them.
As McWilliams explained, the statue now represents “exclusion and marginalization,” and that honoring the “spirit, not the monument” of Sojourner Truth remains the preference in that department.
It appears that Wheeler agrees with this sentiment, because the president hopes that over the next two years “we can create a narrative part of the statue’s experience,” which would be accessible via a QR code to become part of its base. It would “describe the process and conflict. We are not going to run away from this.” Rather, the president feels that by engaging with students in journalism, art, history, black, and women’s studies, a “rich expression of the meaning of Sojourner Truth for the campus” can be created, and that it will place this statue in the context of all of the bureaucratic and communication failures that occurred.
“I don’t expect the feelings to go away,” Wheeler said. “Each step for the statue is a part of the story. We’re not sweeping it under the rug — that would be problematic on many levels.”
Upon learning about the president’s intent, McWilliams said, “Now our effort is to make sure that the story is permanent.” While they remain opposed to returning the statue to campus at all, the department chair added that whether any of those professors will participate in the unveiling “will depend upon the narrative.”
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