Commemorating sojourner truth: Negotiating the politics of race and gender in the spaces of public memory

Abstract

Three recent public campaigns to commemorate nineteenth century activist Sojourner Truth raise significant questions about the objects and processes of public memory and the shaping of cultural values. Sojourner Truth's history and works already are rhetorical constructions, such that any attempt to commemorate her must choose among various meanings she embodies as both African American and female. Framed within the recent literature on the rhetoric of public memory, this essay examines the three commemoration campaigns to explore how the difficult questions of race and gender were negotiated in these memorializing processes.