The role of individual personalities in a social movement is often recorded in disproportion to the individual's achievement. Minorities have received short shrift in the past. Women in particular are apt to be slighted by historians who, until recently, were generally composed of educated white males viewing the past through a perspective that was sorely limited by lack of imagination and empathy. Needless to say, women of African-American heritage have been more likely lost in the shuffle of such opinion than white women and black men. As Arican-Americans in America moved from slavery to freedom, from segregated minority to still-being-attempted integration into the mainstream society, there has been a none-too-subtle discount of the black woman's accomplishments in the field of social reform. Nevertheless, there has been a strong spine of African-American female participation running through the civil rights, women's rights and human rights movements that has been consistently strong and inspirational from the earliest days. It is a roll call including such deserving-renown names as Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Fannie Lou Hamer.
Possible the most famous of the early black civil rights pioneers was Sojourner Truth (circa 1797-1883). Born a slave in Ulster County, New York, Sojourner was originally named "Isabella Baumfree" by her Dutch master. She saw her brothers and sisters sold off and was herself sold with some sheep to a Yankee farmer - who beat her for speaking Dutch and not understanding English. She was sold twice more before she was twelve years old. Her master John Dumont raped her - then married her to an older slave, Thomas, by whom she had five children. Although slavery was ended by law in New York, Dumont delayed her emancipation and sold her five year-old son, Peter. In response, Isabella ran away from Dumont with another child, a baby, and contracted to serve another maste...