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Isabella Baumfree was born a slave not in the South, but in Ulster County, N.Y., in 1797.
In the first nine years of her life she spoke only Dutch. About that time she was sold Baumfree (originally spelled "Bomefree") and a herd of sheep went for $100. She suffered frequent beatings at the hands of her owner's family because she couldn't communicate in English, so she learned the new language.
She was sold twice more before 1810, but the mistreatment did not stop. Her first love, a fellow slave named Robert, was beaten into submission and likely died at the hands of his owner.
Baumfree finally escaped with a young daughter (from an earlier forced marriage with an older slave), then wandered about before chancing upon a rural New York couple that strongly felt slavery was wrong.
The numbing adversity that Baumfree experienced from her youth until she was nearly 30 years old evolved into a spiritual fire. She became a ceaseless voice for abolition, women's rights, pacifism and religious tolerance all that two decades before the Civil War. During that conflict, she helped nurse wounded soldiers.
Isabella Baumfree became known to America as Sojourner Truth. Her incredible story is told in "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave," a book that still resonates strongly in this country 158 years after it was published.
Sojourner Truth, like many African Americans, isn't mentioned in many American history books. Her story needs to be told, not only during Black History Month in February, but year round.
Ditto with Florynce Rae Kennedy, who just passed away in 2000. Kennedy was denied admission to Columbia Law School because, officials said, "she was a woman." She sued, claiming racial discrimination, and won; she later became Columbia Law School's first black graduate.
Like Sojourner Truth, Kennedy fought for civil, women's and human rights.
Her "in-your-face" political activism earned her many critics. In 1974 People magazine described her as "the biggest, loudest and undisputedly the rudest mouth on the battleground where feminist activists and radical politics join in mostly common cause."
She relished that role, and made a big difference. She helped found the National Women's Political Caucus and was among Shirley Chisholm's strongest supporters when the latter became the first African-American presidential candidate in 1972.
Although Chisholm was a non-factor in the Democratic nominating process, Kennedy was undaunted. "So what if she didn't win? If you've been lying on the ground with a truck on your ankle, you don't jump up and join the Olympics. The first step is to walk at all."
Kennedy got some of her fire from her father, who was a porter and later owned a taxi business in Kansas City. Once, when he was confronted by Ku Klux Klansmen after buying a house in a white neighborhood, her father grabbed a shotgun and refused to budge.
Linda Smith of Topeka, Kan., grew up just seven blocks away from Sumner Elementary School. It was the closest school to her home, and was a quality institution.
Today Smith, 64 years old, can tell stories of her third-grade year, when she wasn't allowed to attend Sumner and instead was forced to walk six blocks to catch a bus to Monroe Elementary a mile away from her home.
Smith, born Linda Brown, was the focal student in 1954's historic Brown v. Board of Education lawsuit brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case originally titled Oliver Brown (Linda's father) et al v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas sought to end segregation in the city's schools and allow blacks equal educational opportunities.
"Had there been no May 17, 1954, I'm not sure there would have been a Little Rock," said U.S. Rep. John Lewis of Georgia. "I'm not sure there would have been a Martin Luther King Jr., or Rosa Parks, had it not been for May 17, 1954. It created an environment for us to push, for us to pull. And we must never forget it. We must tell the story again, over and over and over."
About the same time in history a young woman named Autherine Juanita Lucy tried to become the first African-American student to enroll at the University of Alabama. It was 11 years before Gov. George Wallace tried to block integration efforts at the university.
Lucy sought to enroll as a graduate student in 1952, was denied, and went to court in 1953 challenging the school's segregation. Two years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in her favor. Later her enrollment was suspended because the university claimed it could not guarantee her safety.
Autherine Lucy's story like that of countless African American women (and men) needs to be told in classrooms and everywhere else. Over and over and over.
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