Sojourner Truth meets Abraham Lincoln

Sojourner Truth meets with Lincoln at the White House. This issue of the leading abolitionist newspaper The Liberator prints the famous letter from Sojourner Truth to her friend Rowland Johnson recounting at length her meeting with Lincoln on October 29, 1864.

“Upon entering his reception room we found about a dozen persons in waiting, among them two colored women. I had quite a pleasant time waiting until he was disengaged, and enjoyed his conversation with others; he showed as much kindness and consideration to the colored persons as to the white. One case was that of a colored woman who was sick and likely to be turned out of her house on account of her inability to pay her rent. The president listened to her with much attention, and spoke to her with kindness and tenderness.”

Truth recounts telling Lincoln, “I appreciate you, for you are the best President who has ever taken the seat” and comparing him to Daniel in the lions’ den. He replied, “I expect you have reference to my having emancipated the slaves in my Proclamation; but’ said he, mentioning the names of several of his predecessors, and particularly Washington, ‘they were just as good, and would have done just as I have, if the time had come.’”

“I presented him with one of my shadows [presumably a CDV photograph portrait] and songs, for which he thanked me, and said he would keep them as a remembrance.” Lincoln then showed her a Bible he had been presented “by the colored people.” She observed, “This is beautiful, and to think that the colored people have given this to the Head of the Government—and to think that Govenrment once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to be able to read that book!” Lincoln then signed Truth’s autograph book “with the same hand that signed the death-warrant of Slavery.

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