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Portrayals and portraits EssayThe processes of humanity stock in regard to Sojourner trueness already are framed by the multiple figurations that existed in the public instinct prior to the three specific commemorative dwellaigns that form the focus of this study. Although some of the specific details vary, the basic outlines of Truths life are accessible. Born as a slave in upstate New York around 1797 and origin altogethery named Isabella, Truth was freed according to the dictates of state law in 1827.She adopted the name of Sojourner Truth and began a life of freedom that progressed through three distinct stages. The first stage is marked by her involvement with the Kingdom, an infamous religious community led Robert Matthews, alike know as Matthias. After Truth left the Kingdom in 1834 she traveled through New York and Connecticut, speaking at various religious camp meetings. Friends eventually directed her to the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Mas sachusetts, a group founded on socialist and transcendentalist ideas.In this second stage, Truths involvement with the Northampton group introduced her to several(prenominal) notable public advocates, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Olive Gilbert, who would later truckle her first collaborator on her Narrative (Fitch Mandziuk, 1997, p. 16). When the Northampton Association disbanded in 1849, Truth entered her third stage as an advocate for the anti-slavery and womens rights causes. She lived and traveled in Ohio for a few years, finally settling in Battle Creek, Michigan in 1857 where she resided until her death.During this third stage, Truth traveled wide through eastern and mid-western states, often appearing as a popular speaker at conventions and meetings. Among the events in this third stage of Truths life that have become the fuel for her mythic meanings were her famous 1851 speech at a womens rights convention in Akron, Ohio and an 1858 confronta tion with a hostile male audience in atomic number 47 Lake, Indiana where she expose her breast to prove she was female.In her own time, Truths contemporaries in their descriptions and accounts had transformed her tale variously to depict her as a tragical victim of slavery, a religious pilgrim, a comic caricature, and a fiery orator and advocate for womens rights (Fitch Mandziuk, 1997 Mabee Newhouse, 1993 Mandziuk Fitch, 2001 Painter 1994, 1996). While it is impossible to know how much book Truth actually exerted over the costuming and posing of these images, they do offer a striking alternative to the often grotesque, defiant, or devout descriptions of her that were available in mark at the time.In all but one, Truth is seated. In these she is located in settings containing materialistic accoutrements such as bookcases, carved chairs, flowers, and books. In all of the portraits she is dolled up in a fringed shawl and wears tailored clothing of heavy, patterned fabrics. In some she holds knitting in one an open portrait of a new male rests in her lap. In the other portrait she is standing, her right hand resting on a cane with her left arm at her side. In all but two, she wears eyeglasses.In some she looks past the camera, directing her glance sideways or downward in others her glance is more leveled and direct. The images are striking for their middle-class depictions as Painter (1996) ob gos, In none of these portraits is there anything beyond blackness that would inspire charitynothing of the piteous slave mother or the weird Matthias Kingdom, no bared arms, no bodice taken down in public, nothing of Stowes amusing naif. The cartes de visite show a solid bourgeoisie (p. 196).These photographic images have been reproduced ever since on posters, buttons, cards, and t-shirts importantly, they serve as the primary source material for any other interpretations and representations of Truths physical appearance. Contemporary campaigns to commemorate Tru th in material form necessarily draw from these available portrayals and portraits. There is much room for negotiation and advocacy, however, around precisely which version of Truth will be visualized at a extra time and place, as well as who has the right to control and retain ownership of that image.As Painter (1996) concludes, Even today, when Truth can symbolize the fantastic black woman for most of her audience, others can see her as a kind of pet (p. 129). In the three recent debates over establishing statues of Truth, the ideological implications of the choices make indicate clear differences regarding her symbolic meanings. A preference for the bourgeois, devout, serious image among predominantly white communities marks her as a symbol of accommodation, while African American public memory continues to evoke the mythology of Gages defiant advocate and radical critique of white audiences.In each debate over how Truth would be remembered the concept of character provides an important lens to assess the meaning of each commemoration. From among the available portrayals and photographic records, each representation of Truth selected particular elements while deflecting others. The dimensions include in each characterization of Truth provide a revelatory index to the particular values of the community and the means through which her image was altered to suit various purposes. Essentially, character provides the window to how questions of identity politics were negotiated in each instance.In the Portrait Monument dispute, the image of Truth in evoked by the National Political Congress of Black Women reference the angry orator first envisioned by Frances Gage in 1863. In this version, Truth symbolizes the defiant insistence on race as a central consideration in public debate and the processes of public memory, an adaptation of this persona often used by black women to challenge white exclusionary tactics. The characteristics depicted in the Battle Creek and Northampton statues invoke the alternative image of Truth as the sustainer of principles of equality and faith.These two commemorations replicate the bourgeois aspects of Truths cartes de visite, yet also depict her in safe and comforting ways. The defiant Truth is subordinated in favor of likenesses that beam abstract values and celebrate conciliation rather than ones that insist on recognizing am valuing difference. Evaluation of the dimension of character in the process of public memory thus reveals the ideological functions served by a particular commemorative representation.These campaigns to re-present Truth in a material form reveal the uncertainties in the process of public memory, as well as the ways in which the practice often accommodates and dissipates political challenges to the values held dear by dominant culture. Among the potential meanings of Truth, her symbolic annexation as a sign of the ideals of equality and justice easily is reconcilable with our American d emocratic mythology and frequent delusion that inequities can be solved precisely through psyche acts of faith and hope. Consequently, Truth is appropriated in her most bourgeois, benign, and reverent form.The Truth commemorated is an image that is ambiguous enough for us to find residues of her race and sex meanings within it if we so desire, but is also abstract enough to be of no threat on either front. (Manziuk, 2003) Genealogical research, when conducted within the context of black history using a variety of resources, offers a more encompassing perspective of the African American family in American society. In other words, our individual family photographs can provide a wealth of information about society in general.