I have thought a great deal about what to say to you at the close of this chronicle of my life. Because our lives are so intertwined, this is as much your story as mine. Yet, when I think of you alone, I envision your future and my hopes for you and all the women of your generation.

When I look at your life, I see a world of choices that I could not have imagined when I was your age. I think of the rights that you take for granted--rights that would not exist if not for the grit and determination of all those women who resisted oppression. And at the close of the twentieth century, I think about how your rights are being seriously threatened. I wonder whether you fully appreciate how important it is to accept the responsibility of protecting your freedom. I pray that you will never forget that you are the beneficiary of the struggles and sacrifices of others, and that your children in turn will reap the investment you make in their future.

You have studied the life of Sojourner Truth, and though you have cautioned me not to allow her to become "a cliche" in my speeches, I hope you will indulge me once again, for I find the lessons of inspiration in her life as relevant today as they were 150 years ago.

As you know, when the first national women's rights convention was held in Worcester, Massachusetts, in October 1850, Sojourner Truth was the only black female delegate in attendance. Born in 1797, Sojourner had spent the first forty years of her life in slavery and servitude. When her owner promised her freedom, then rescinded his promise, she left his farm in Ulster County, New York, and, after a brief contract with another farmer, headed for New York City. She changed her name from Isabela to Sojourner Truth--a name she believed would be taken as a sign that her calling to the ministry came from God. Like your grandmother, Sojourner traveled the highways and byways, calling sinners to repentance. And like your grandmother, she quickly found herself esteemed both for her speaking powers and the lather of her humor as she gained a large following among white audiences as well as black ones.

Sojourner Truth eventually joined the abolitionist movement, where her activism, and the zeal of her women colleagues, engendered society's criticism. This censure, combined with the unequal treatment of women by their male colleagues within the movement itself, prompted her to embrace women's rights as part of her crusade, and she joined forces with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony in the fledgling suffragette and women's rights movements.

At the women's rights convention, Sojourner found herself in the midst of a forum of educated white women whose issues she did not fully understand, such as the right to own land and the right to wear pants. (Your grandmother would not have approved of the latter demand.) As a former slave, Sojourner found these issues of little relevance to her. Hers was the same sentiment often expressed by African American women today toward the women's liberation movement. So when she was asked her opinion on one such issue, she replied, "Sisters, I'm not clear what you be after. If women want any rights more than they've got, why don't they just take them and not be talking about it."

I've often thought of the power embodied in her simple admonition to the women of that forum, and how relevant her instructions remain for women in their struggles today and for you and your generation in particular.

Women's rights are incontrovertible, Sojourner Truth was telling us. They are our birthright. All we have to do is claim them. It seems that women have not fully absorbed the wisdom of this former slave, who understood women's potential more clearly than we do today. Women have made phenomenal progress since she spoke in Worcester, but until the day arrives when all women decide that our rights are not negotiable, our future choices will not be secure.

Sojourner's life was transformed from slavery to a ministry of liberation. Similarly, your grandmother left the cotton fields of Mississippi to fulfill a mission of religious salvation. Neither allowed themselves to be shackled by convention. Instead, they ignored the rules of what they were supposed to do for the sake of what they believed they were called to do. I've never heard your grandmother question her calling or her right to fulfill it--not when she encountered opposition because of her gender, not when she faced danger because of her race, and not when it meant long separations from her family and friends. I doubt that Sojourner did either. But most importantly, they both believed in themselves--they believed that they had the power within themselves to shape their own destinies. Neither would be denied her future, whether here on earth or in the great beyond. Their effectiveness lay in the strength of persuasion, in their appeal to the sentiments of decency, civility, and godliness, and above all in their refusal to cede their personal power to the will of others.

It's more than blood that binds your grandmother, you, and me. On the surface, your grandmother's and my missions in life could hardly have been more different. Beneath it, they are driven by the same guiding principles. My mother believes in the ultimate power of God in every earthly purpose. Yes, I believe in God, but I also believe in the power of human beings, if given the means, to manage their lives and to work for a better existence for others. Your grandmother crisscrossed the country with a message of salvation from eternal damnation. I have traveled many of the same roads, and more, with a message of respect, tolerance, and compassion--salvation from the injustices of this world.

Over the years, I have come to understand and even revere those qualities about your grandmother, for I now recognize that these are the roots of who I am. I've come to appreciate how essential Mama's beliefs and values were in shaping my own values. Through her teachings and through her example, she gave me the code of ethics--your grandmother calls them "principles"--by which I live: honesty, loyalty, integrity, respect and compassion for others, diligence, perseverance, and faith in God. She taught me right from wrong. For her, the lines were never fuzzy.

I have tried to convey the same principles to you, although with less absolutism. Your dresses may have been short enough to give your grandmother and me heart attacks, and school dances were not forbidden, but you were taught not to compromise your fundamental values for the sake of acceptance. You were also taught to keep your heart open to an empathic understanding of how you would feel "if that were me."

Through the example of my life, I've tried to demonstrate that it's our continuing responsibility to challenge inequality, intolerance, and oppression--the darkness that snuffs out the flames of hope.

Often we've talked about the differences between your grandmother's standards and those by which you were reared. You've wondered how your own evolving values fit into the picture. As I did and your grandmother before me, you must find your own way. You've been taught to believe in yourself and to live by your principles. It won't be any easier for you than it was for your grandmother or for me. It will require courage. Your life's possibilities will expand or shrink in direct proportion to the strength of your courage.

You are a member of a privileged class. I don't just mean the conventional privilege of affluence. More importantly, your privilege is of a heritage rich in values, academic achievement, and exposure to a world far beyond that of most people your age. This privilege carries a high price tag--the obligation of service and especially the duty of leadership. Leadership may not come easy to you, for it is a cloak that women do not wear comfortably, regardless of our ethnic, political, or social backgrounds. We're conditioned to avoid appearing to be leaders, for this means wielding power, and powerful women are viewed as threatening. We are taught in many different ways that it's not feminine to use power in a forthright manner. Yet the judicious use of power is the cornerstone of leadership. When we shrink from power, the result is that women are forced into circuitous machinations that sap our ability to protect our choices and to contribute the fullest measure of our potential to our world.

The women of your generation must wear the raiments of power and leadership with as much self-possession as the women in your grandmother's and Aunt Alice's sewing room wore their beautiful new clothes. Leadership is not the exclusive purview of those appointed to national platforms. Each of us can practice it every day of our lives. And leadership isn't solely about individual achievement. For when we act together, we have the power to shape the future in ways that we never can individually. You certainly understood the power of collective leadership when you and your classmates united to persuade the administrators in your high school to create a more culturally diverse curriculum.

As we enter the twenty-first century, the stakes have never been higher for women to assert the power of our leadership. Now is the time for women of your generation to become invested in the political process, for your lives are on the line. In this last national political cycle of the twentieth century, the next president of the United States will probably have the opportunity to shape the Supreme Court that will arbitrate the rules of law for your children. Because of the Court's retrenchment, women's rights--especially women's reproductive rights--are held together by a very fragile political thread. What will the next president do? If the Congress remains anti-choice, women could lose a great deal that has been gained in our ability to make our own decisions about our own lives. Americans' fundamental rights, women's rights, your rights, your children's rights, must not be allowed to hang in the balance.

Religious tenets will continue to be used as a vehicle to undermine the power of your womanhood. Freedom of religion and freedom of speech are America's most cherished liberties. They are the rights that protected the traditions of your ancestors. But no matter how strong a force religion has been in shaping your grandmother's life, my life, and yours, we are still free to choose or reject it--and we have been taught never to impose it on others. I implore you to recognize the sacredness of this freedom, the inestimable value of not being forced to bow down to the gods of others, and the uncompromising determination that is needed to protect this right. Do not allow the denial of your first liberty to be a weapon of your oppression.

As an African American, I'm secure in the belief that our Constitution protects you from discrimination because of your skin color and that the state cannot officially control your destiny because of your race. But you were female long before you understood what it meant to be African American. And it pains me to say that, as a woman, you are not equally secure from government oppression because of the unique reproductive characteristics of your gender. My training and experience as a nurse and nurse-midwife were invaluable in teaching me, as Margaret Sanger's profession taught her, that a woman's health and her right to control her reproduction are inextricably linked to her ability to achieve equality.

My determination has been driven by the repugnant idea of the government in a free society intruding into the most private aspects of a woman's life and body. I find the powers that the courts have granted the states so profoundly objectionable that I once suggested that reproductive rights should be explicitly secured in the Constitution. I was roundly criticized as being unrealistic and extreme. Perhaps I was unrealistic, but I was not extreme--and bearing the criticism was vastly less important to me than saving women's lives. Nothing is more essential to your personal liberty than protecting your body from the intrusions of governmental edicts. Private does not mean a little government regulation. What's private is private.

During the past four years the restoration of the reproductive rights that were lost during the Reagan and Bush era was not due to the united efforts of women, but by the political sweep of the presidential pen. The domestic and international gag rules, which would have prohibited women from receiving information about abortion, failed not because the Supreme Court ruled that the president couldn't censor speech, but because time expired before the Bush administration could figure out how to impose them. What frightens me most is that women--especially the young women of your generation--seem unaware of this. They simply do not recognize the seriousness of the dangers that loom over a right so fundamental as their "right to be." Those who are committed to reversing women's progress are expert in using the powers of the law, especially in the states, and executive orders to narrow the choices of your future and to deny you the potential of the power that is within you.

Be especially mindful that women's reproductive rights will continue to be at the heart of the struggle for women's equality. Within your rights to control your fertility is vested enormous power, and the power to control the entry of life into the world. Some believe such power should not be entrusted to you, for they fear the destruction of the old order of women living in subservience to sexual and reproductive control. They fear all that it means for women to be equal in every respect. Who will have the power to make the decisions about the most intimate aspects of your body and your life force? By whose moral and religious values will you live? Who will make the decisions about your daughter's body and the choices in her life? Will she, or will the government?

You must not languish in the complacency of "it's all so boring," or, "I don't have time to get involved." It is never too early to get involved. Remember, your grandmother began her ministry at seventeen. She also taught me from the Bible that it is "the little foxes that spoil the vines." If you do not keep yourself informed, some will exploit your detachment and will whittle and whittle at the vines of your rights. Without your resistance, their resolutions will eventually weaken the sustaining promise of your liberty, embodied in the promise of our Constitution.

You've been encouraged to be an independent thinker. In your brief life, encounters with injustice have energized your spirit of resistance. I've seen your reaction when you believed I was dealing with you unfairly; I've seen the sadness and indignation in your eyes when we sat together in the villages of the poorest women of the world. You've grown up in the thick of one of the most important social movements of the twentieth century. You've been taught the value of hard work and diligence. The doors of opportunity have been opened wide for you. But it's not the privilege to which we are born, but what we make of our lives that counts. You must now continue the fight.

How will you put your talents to work for women? How will you use them to shape your future? Will you take risks? Will you use the system to work in the interests of all women, especially the most vulnerable women? Will you do this without apology?

The irony of this struggle is that if the women of our country, of our world, united to end inequality, it would be eradicated. The potential is within us, within you. In solidarity, women need not fear the price of claiming what is ours--our right to full equality and opportunity. I believe there are some steps we can take that will help us to overcome our reticence to use our powers, to, as Sojourner Truth said, "take them and not be talking about it." I offer these to you in the hope that they will guide you as you seek to fulfill your own mission in life:

Be informed. Be vigilant! You can't defend your rights if you don't understand them, if you don't know how you got them, and if you don't know who wants to destroy them. Take nothing for granted, for if you do so, you will not take pains to protect your rights.

Do not shrink from power. Feel a sense of who you really are deep within, and do not rely on the approval of others as your primary source of affirmation. You have the power within yourself to create beneficial change for yourself and for others.

Don't ever compromise your fundamental rights. Would you sit still if the government attempted to control The New York Times? Wouldn't it be unthinkable if each edition were reviewed by government censors? Felicia, the sanctity of your body is even more precious.

Don't ever let anyone convince you that a cause cannot be won. It may take time and it may be painful, but nothing of value has been attained without struggle. And so much is lost when we cannot summon the courage of our convictions.

Don't be afraid to fail. Try to see your setbacks as learning opportunities. I certainly did, when I discovered that I could not fly and then mounted my tricycle the next day to move on to my next adventure. Learn to ignore those who undermine your resolve and your vision. Some of history's greatest advances have been born of frustration and setbacks yielding to perseverance.

Support other women. Remember--we live in a society that does not value women enough. We must support each other when we speak out and when we challenge barriers. I deeply hope that the women of your generation will be more mutually supportive of each other than the women of my time have learned to be.

Embrace every level of the political process. It is a ubiquitous force in our lives, and women must be reasonably represented and involved at every level if public policies are to reflect our aspirations and protect our lives.

Do not allow yourself to grow weary of the struggle for equality. This struggle has endured for hundreds of years, and sadly, I don't foresee it being achieved in our lifetimes, perhaps not even in your children's lifetime. If you accept inequities, what hope will your children have of enjoying the rights that you now possess? If we don't give in, if we don't despair when we experience setbacks, we can protect our gains and make progress toward the day that our rights and aspirations will no longer be contested because we are women.

Change is rarely immediate. This has been one of the most difficult lessons I have had to learn. Change usually comes in increments, and over time, as though to entice us to persist.

Maintain your grace and dignity, even when you are subjected to the most distasteful lack of civility. Whether you like it or not, you are a role model, and your conduct and your life influence others. What do you want to exemplify?

Remember: the recorded history of the world is essentially a story of liberation, of the triumph of freedom over oppression. But the victories were usually hard-won. We--your grandmother, you, I, and all those who join the struggle for equality--are in good company with those who made the sacrifices and "fought the good fight" before us.

Not too long ago, I asked your grandmother if she believed that the price she paid to pursue her mission was too high. "No, Lordy. I have no regrets," she said. "I'd do it all over again." I, too, have no regrets, for in you, I see the future.

To flip through the pages of my BOS faster...

Title Page My Book of Shadows Bill of Rights What’s New The Library My Secret Grove Humor Favorite Writings Spell Workings Sabbats Webrings Goddesses Gods Current Quest The Soapbox Herbs Reader Contributions Stories for the Heart My Graphics COSW Gift Win My Award Find the Wands Runes Awards Fantasy Art Links Different Witches The Witch Speaks Erma Bombeck My Free Lessons Site Map HTML Help A Pagan Moment Recipes Under 18? Spirit Animals Letters to the Goddess Ancient History Oddz 'N' Endz

>