Today’s Saints’ Day: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Ross Tubman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Jenks Bloomer

These four women are described as Liberators and Prophets.

The Episcopal Church has added to its Calendar four American women who were pioneers in the struggle for black emancipation and for women's votes. The date chosen for commemorating them is the anniversary of the Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, New York, 19-20 July 1848. (James Kiefer)

“That little man in black says woman can't have as much rights as man because Christ wasn't a woman. Where did your Christ come from? . . . From God and a woman. Man has nothing to do with him.” - Sojourner Truth speaking at the Ohio Woman's Rights Covention in Akron, Ohio, 1851. (American Suffragist Movement.)

Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker Abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for homeless women. When she was traveling, and someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain’t I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus." (Kiefer)

Harriet Ross Tubman was born in 1820 in Maryland. She was deeply impressed by the Bible narrative of God's deliverance of the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and it became the basis of her belief that it was God's will to deliver slaves in America out of their bondage, and that it was her duty to help accomplish this. In 1844, she escaped to Canada, but returned to help others escape. Working with other Abolitionists, chiefly white Quakers, she made at least nineteen excursions into Maryland in the 1850's, leading more than 300 slaves to freedom. During the War of 1861-5, she joined the Northern Army as a cook and a nurse and a spy, and on one occasion led a raid that freed over 750 slaves. After the war, she worked to shelter orphans and elderly poor persons, and to advance the status of women and blacks. She became known as "the Moses of her People." (Kiefer)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a pioneer in the early women’s rights movement. In 1848 she joined other women for the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls and prepared a Declaration of Sentiments based on the Declaration of Independence that called for radical changes for women including the right to vote. Stanton, an activist and reformer, focused her energy on temperance, suffrage and women’s rights. She helped to found the National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) in 1869 with Susan B. Anthony. Together with Susan B. Anthony, Stanton also took the initiative to compose a Woman’s Bible that would include notes and reflections especially for women. Stanton, raised in the Presbyterian Church, was often annoyed with ministers she encountered who did not promote women’s rights. She attempted to call them back to the Gospel message and preached in many churches herself regarding women’s rights. (EWM)

Amelia Bloomer, A peer of Elizabeth Stanton, Bloomer (1818-1894) was deeply involved in the women’s rights movement. She began her own publication The Lily, which some call the first feminist magazine, in 1849 in order to share her views on temperance, and women’s rights. One year earlier she attended the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls. In addition to making her literary contribution, The Lily, she also developed a new fashion for women. In the nineteenth century women’s clothing was not only restricting, it was in some cases a health hazard. The tightly laced garments constricted the women and sometimes caused breathing problems. Bloomer invented a new fashion of wearing loose baggy pants (nicknamed “Bloomers” in honor of Amelia) under shorter, looser skirts. (EWM)


Check out the Episcopal Women’s Ministries: Working for Gender Justice in the Church & in the World - http://www.episcopalchurch.org/41685_87018_ENG_HTM.htm

Lessons and Prayers: http://www.io.com/~kellywp/LesserFF/Jul/Stanton.html

Things to keep in mind about our history:
1863 – Emancipation Proclamation declared (but highly limited in effectiveness)
1867 – 14th amendment passes Congress, defining citizens as “male;” this is the first use of the word male in the Constitution.
1868 – 15th amendment passes Congress allowing black men to vote.
1920 – 19th amendment passes Congress allowing for women to vote.

Slavery is not a thing of the past: http://www.antislavery.org/
The Archbishops of Canterbury article: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/3577_83528_ENG_HTM.htm
The Episcopal history in regards to Slavery: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/1866_84319_ENG_HTM.htm