Program of Events

Prelude Florence Community Band

Welcome Reynolds Winslow

The Sojourner Truth Memorial

Past… Rev. Dr. Peter B. Ives

Present… Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian

Future Paul Gaffney

Song Joyful Noise Gospel Choir

Expressions of thanks to
Mary L. Ford Stephanie Levin
Senator Stan Rosenberg Phil Hall
Mayor Mary Clare Higgins Jacqueline Sheehan
Denig Design Associates Karen Hurd

Song Joyful Noise Gospel Choir

Introduction of Sculptor,
Thomas Jay Warren Joanne Katz
& Linda Wallack

Unveiling of Statue

Selections Florence Community Band

Closing Words Reynolds Winslow

 Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was a well-known advocate for women’s rights

and the abolition of slavery during the 1840’s and 50’s. Born a slave in
upstate New York in approximately 1797, she labored for a succession of
5 masters until slavery was abolished in New York in 1827. She moved
to New York City and worked as a housekeeper while becoming deeply
involved in religion. In 1842, she took her new name, Sojourner Truth,
and became a traveling preacher.

Truth began walking through Long Island and Connecticut,

speaking to people in the countryside about her life and her relationship
with God. A powerful speaker and singer, when she rose to speak, wrote
one observer, “her commanding figure and dignified manner hushed
every trifler into silence.” Audiences were “melted into tears by her
touching stories.”

After several months of traveling, Truth was encouraged by

friends to go to the Northampton Association for Education & Industry,
which had been founded in 1841 as a cooperative community dedicated
to abolitionism, pacifism, equality, and the betterment of human life.
There, she met progressive thinkers like William Lloyd Garrison,
Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles. Douglass described her at that
time as “a strange compound of wit and wisdom, of wild enthusiasm and
flint-like commonsense.”

When the Association disbanded in 1846, Truth remained in

Northampton, moving for the first time into her own home, on Park St. in
Florence, with a loan from Samuel Hill. Although Truth never learned to
read or write, she dictated her memoirs to Olive Gilbert and they were
published in 1850 as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern
Slave. This book, and her powerful presence as a speaker, made her a
sought-after figure on the anti-slavery and women’s rights lecture circuit.

Over the next decade, Truth traveled and spoke widely. She is
particularly remembered for the speech she gave at the women’s rights
convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. Truth moved to Michigan in 1857
and continued her advocacy. After the Emancipation Proclamation was
issued, she moved to Washington D.C. where, in her late 60’s, she began
working with former slaves in the newly created Freedman’s Village.
She met with President Lincoln in the White House, where he told her he
had heard of her speeches long before.
 After the Civil War, Truth set out on a final crusade to gain
support for her dream of a land distribution program for former slaves –
an idea that, despite her persistent lobbying, Congress refused to enact.
Finally she returned to her home in Battle Creek, Michigan, where,
surrounded by family and friends, she died in 1883.

Thomas Jay Warren

Thomas Jay Warren, of Denver, CO, works exclusively by

commission creating portraits, monuments, and memorials. He has also
created: the Medgar Evers Memorial in Jackson, Mississippi – a life-size
bronze of the slain civil rights leader; the over life-size bronze portrait of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Newark NJ’s City Hall; and a life-size
bronze portrait of legendary Sioux spiritual leader Frank Fools Crow at
Bear Butte State Park in South Dakota.

Warren, who was born in Mississippi in 1958, studied sculpture

as a Presidential scholar at Mississippi College, graduating with special
distinction in 1979. He studied figure sculpture with renowned sculpture
Andrzej Pitynski at the Johnson Atelier in New Jersey. Two years after
starting his apprenticeship he was appointed head of the Modeling/
Enlarging Department at this prestigious institute. For ten
years Warren taught techniques for modeling and enlarging the
portrait and the human figure. In 1992 Warren was presented with the
Young Sculptors Award by the National Sculpture Society. He was
inducted into the National Sculpture Society in 1997.

Denig Design Associates, Inc.

Denig Design Associates, Inc. is an award-winning, woman-

owned landscape architecture firm noted for its rational site planning and
creative landscape design based on natural resource conservation and
historic preservation principles. DDA offers its clients a broad spectrum
of services including land planning, urban design, garden and landscape
design and historic landscape preservation. DDA is currently partnering
with Carr Lynch and Sandell, Inc., a Cambridge-based multi-disciplinary
firm, to offer its clients a broader range of services and the benefit of
architectural and landscape architectural services within one firm. The
DDA design team for the Sojourner Truth Memorial site consisted of
Nancy Watkins Denig, Heather Cruddace and Martin Ringey.
 Thank you!
We are indebted to the following individuals and businesses whose
generosity and leadership helped realize the dream of this memorial.

Judith & Richard Abuza Carol MacColl

American Friends Service Com. Mass. Fdn. for the Humanities
Anonymous Massachusetts State Legislature
Jim Ault Mark Moggio
Dr. Fred & Gloria Ayvazian R. Michelson Galleries
Bank of Western Massachusetts Mount Holyoke College
Big Y Worldclass Markets William Norris, Attorney
Broadside Bookshop Northampton Area Pediatrics
Century Rain Aid Northampton Bd. of Public Works
Mary Ann Cofrin Northampton Center for the Arts
Collective Copies Northampton City Council
Community Fdn. of Western Mass. Northampton Dept. of Public
The Daily Hampshire Gazette Works
April Eastman Northampton Police Department
Eclectechs Northampton Rental Center
Roger Finck Andrea Raphael & John Reilly
First Churches of Northampton Senator Stan Rosenberg
Florence Civic Association Glenn Ruga
Florence Congregational Church William Scaife
Florence Savings Bank Wendy Sinton
Flowers a la Carte Smith College
Del Glover & Linda Grenz Smith Vocational High School
Al Griggs Souvenirs & Stuff
Phil & Jane Hall Greg Stone
Historic Northampton David Tebaldi
Isabel Holden Dr. & Mrs. Frederick Tillis
Jack Hornor Janna Ugone
Intervale Farm Unitarian Soc. of N’ton & Florence
Jackson Street School The Wellspring Fund
Judi Johnson Senator Robert Wetmore
Dr. Rollin & Penelope Johnson Greg & Harriet Wilson
David LaChance Jonathan & Meg Kelsey Wright
La Salle Florists Richard Yarde
Kyle Longtin Lynn Zashin & Amy Jacobson

We are grateful to the following businesses for donating perennials,

shrubs, & trees and landscaping supplies for the memorial.
Agway Inc. Home Depot
Andrew’s Greenhouse Lashway Forest Products
Bay State Perennial Farm MacLeod’s Nursery
Blue Meadow Farm Old Deerfield Landscaping
Hadley Garden Center Wholesale Shrubs & Trees
 Special thanks
To the African American Advisory Group and Artist Advisory Group
for their invaluable assistance in the sculptor selection process.

To Ryan Hellwig, Fierst & Pucci, and Mark Moggio for their generous
donation of professional services to make the site plan a reality.

To Florence Casket, for delivering granite, storing and

transporting the statue, and assisting with the installation.

And to Denig Design Associates, whose generosity, creativity,

and vision helped make this memorial possible.

Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue Committee

Nancy Felton, Chair Karen Hurd Marjorie Richardson
Rev. Andrea Ayvazian Rev. Peter Ives Jacqueline Sheehan
Nancy Chamberlin Joanne Katz Steve Strimer
Paul Gaffney Stephanie Levin Linda Wallack
Rev. Phillip Hall Phyllis Mount Reynolds Winslow

Project Coordinator
Monica Green

Friends of the Committee

Ingrid C. Askew Richard Cooper James M. Parsons

Gina Ayvazian Frances Crowe Edward K. Shanahan
Lisa Baskin Nancy Denig Jane Sapp
Steve Calcagnino April Eastman Beverly Daniel Tatum
Elizabeth Carr Sister Senga Fulton Travis Tatum
Martin Carrera Rev. Dewey Gierke Marion Van Arsdell
Michelle Carrera Rev. Peter Kakos Mary Wyatt
Mary Ann Cofrin Mary Kasper Richard Yarde
Fran Colgan Rev. James Munroe

In Memorium
David Marshall Jackson
Bruce MacMillan
 The Future of the Sojourner Truth
Memorial

Plans are underway to publicize the memorial through the

website and other venues. We especially want to inform school
systems throughout the region of the memorial and encourage field
trips for students to learn about Sojourner Truth and the
Northampton Association. We also plan to explore opportunities to
work with the Florence Association, Florence History Association,
and the Lilly Library to develop new resources and programs.
We are seeking new committee members to help with this
effort. If you have some enthusiasm for Florence history and
would like to help, please contact Phil Hall at 584-4524.

*****
I would like to stay informed about the Memorial. Please add me
to the mailing list for occasional newsletters.

I enclose a financial contribution to help get the word out about the
memorial.

I’d like to help; please contact me.

Name ________________________________________________

Address ______________________________________________

Phone (d) _______________ (e) __________________________

email ________________________________________________

Please return this form to the information or sales table, or mail to:

Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue Committee

P.O. Box 60405, Florence, MA 01062

For more information, please visit www.noho.com/sojourner or

contact Monica Green, Project Coordinator, at 413-585-1010.

Gifts to the Committee are tax-deductible to the extent allowable by law.

 Program of Events

Dedication &
Unveiling Ceremony
For the
Sojourner Truth Memorial

6 October 2002
1:30 p.m.

Corner of Pine & Park Streets

Florence, Massachusetts

A Walking History Tour of 1840’s Florence will

follow the ceremony. A donation of $5 is requested.
Please gather in front of Florence Congregational
Church.