GOD SEIZED ISABELLA on Pentecost 1826. Isabella Baumfree, born in slaveholding New York, had secured her freedom. But, in despair for her children, she “looked back into Egypt.” On the verge of returning herself to slavery, God’s spirit overtook her in a mystical encounter that changed her life.
This thunderclap of God’s grandeur surpassed any notions of the divine she had previously acquired. This God, at once familiar and foreign, called Isabella to abandon the faith of her owners. But God also called her to transform the faith inherited from her mother, who taught that survival consisted of equal parts prayer and submission to enslavement. As Isabella recovered from this mystical encounter her only words were, “Oh, God, I did not know you were so big.”
Seventeen years later, Isabella had another mystical experience. After having been swindled out of her savings, she struggled to rebuild financial stability in New York City. She asked herself why, “for all her unwearied labors,” did she have nothing to show? Why did others, with much less work and anxiety, “hoard up treasures for themselves and children”? As she reflected on the economic hardship she witnessed, she realized, “the rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.” With this insight, the political roots of her religious transformation took hold. From that time forward she claimed a new name: Sojourner Truth. And began her career as a traveling preacher and activist.
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