things i love about my neighborhood #2

I love that every time i go grocery shopping at the PathMark on 125th @ Lexington, my neighbors there sing along with the music over the PA (which is often R&B or soul), sing right out loud with no self-consciousness. It is an accepted activity. I love it.

And i love walking by the school named after Sojourner Truth, which i think is the finest name in the English language. However, it was not until today that i finally looked her up online (i had taken a long walk from the west side, due to inadvertantly taking a 1-train instead of a 2 or 3 meaning i ended up on Broadway instead of Lenox).

Christine and i had earlier confessed that neither of us knew about her. I decided today that this state of ignorance had to end.

I found a brief but comprehensive biography of her here. I would like to draw your attention to a sentence about halfway through the story, about a public speaking engagement in Indiana: "someone in the audience accused her of being a man (she was very tall, towering around six feet) so she opened her blouse to reveal her breasts."

I want to know more about this woman...there is a Sojourner Truth Institute in the town where she lived in Michigan.

The title of the painting is "Sojourner Truth Reclaiming Her Son," referencing her successful legal campaign, with the assistance of a group of "activist Quakers," to retrieve her 5-year old son from the Alabama plantation owner who had purchased him "illegally."