After Years of Struggle, Truth in U.S. Capitol

By Kim Gandy, President

May 21, 2009

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rev. Dr. E. Faye Williams, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee listen to speeches at the unveiling

After more than a dozen years of campaigning, lobbying and fundraising, a bust of Sojourner Truth was unveiled in the U.S. Capitol, and I was honored to be on hand for the moving ceremony. Speakers included First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Harry Reid, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee. Clinton and Lee introduced legislation in the Senate and House commissioning the statue, the first in the Capitol to honor an African-American woman.

Truth was born a slave in 1797; she was bought and sold a number of times before gaining her freedom when New York emancipated slaves in 1827. Throughout her life, Truth was a dedicated abolitionist and suffragist. Actor Cicely Tyson was present at the dedication to recite the famous "Ain't I A Woman" speech delivered by Truth at an 1851 women's rights convention.

NOW President Kim Gandy speaking at the 2002 "Rally for Truth" with Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) on her right and C. DeLores Tucker on her left.

NOW has supported the campaign since the mid-1990's, beginning with an effort to carve Truth's likeness into an existing statue of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott that contained an unfinished section. For more than ten years, I was privileged to represent NOW in press conferences, rallies, and lobbying efforts spearheaded by the late Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, a civil rights and women's rights leader who was chair of the National Congress of Black Women, and by her able successor Rev. Dr. E. Faye Williams, who is also a former member of NOW's national board. The statue has been a long time coming, but worth the wait. Fittingly it now stands in Emancipation Hall, but we expect that it will be moved to a place of special honor in the Rotunda.

"We are all here because, as my husband says time and time again, we stand on the shoulders of giants like Sojourner Truth," said Obama. "And just as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott would be pleased to know that we have a woman serving as the speaker of the House of Representatives, I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the first lady of the United States of America."