ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, April 6, 1997 TAG: 9704070021
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: 5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: SAM FULWOOD III LOS ANGELES TIMES
A coalition of black women's groups is demanding that the memorial include Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist and women's rights contemporary of the white women.
A controversy over the placement of a statue in the Capitol Rotunda has escalated into a monumental battle, pitting white and black feminists in a competition to recognize women's struggle for the right to vote.
The contretemps stems from a hard-won victory by a predominantly white coalition of women's rights activists to have a statue of three suffrage leaders - Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton - lifted from obscurity in the Capitol basement to a premier spot on the west side of the Rotunda.
After a long, hard-fought campaign to secure congressional authorization for the move, the activists prevailed. Now, a coalition of black women's groups is demanding that the suffrage memorial include Sojourner Truth, a 19th-century abolitionist and women's rights contemporary of the white women.
``We all agree that a suffrage statue is proper and should be placed in the Rotunda,'' said C. Delores Tucker, chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women Inc., and the leader of a group protesting the raising of the statue. ``But we can't let this statue be placed in the Rotunda without Sojourner Truth.''
Karen Staser, founder and president of the National Museum of Women's History, a nascent Alexandria, Va., feminist group, said her organization is championing the move of the suffrage statue as ``a foot in the door to begin restoring the history of women's contributions.''
Staser said she does not intend to exclude Truth and that she believes that the onetime-slave-turned-orator deserves a place under the Capitol dome. But because there is already a historic suffrage statue, Staser said, it would be wrong to keep it in the basement because it lacks Truth's likeness.
``We do agree that Sojourner Truth was a very important historical figure, and we're working with Tucker and Congress to find a place for Sojourner Truth,'' she said.
Commissioned by the National Women's Party to commemorate the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote, the statue was carved in Italy by Adelaide Johnson and given to Congress in 1921. Congressional leaders rejected the statue at first, but under protests from women's groups, relented and brought the monument into the Rotunda. After a gala celebration that drew an estimated 5,000 people, lawmakers banished the statue to a broom closet in the Capitol basement.
In 1963, the statue was moved to the Capitol crypt, a passageway in the basement, where it now stands. After several failed attempts to move the statue to the Rotunda, where none of the 11 busts and statues is of a woman, lawmakers voted last year to allow it to return to the main Statuary Hall. To make room for the women, a statue of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams will be moved out of the Rotunda.
``We thought we had it made and that our long struggle was finally over until we heard from Tucker about her concerns with Sojourner Truth,'' Staser said. ``We understand her concerns, and I'm sure we'll work them out somehow.''
Both Staser and Tucker said previous meetings have left them frustrated and no additional meetings have been scheduled. In other words, both sides are locked into their respective positions.
Meanwhile, other influential onlookers - including some female members of Congress - said they are feeling uncomfortable as they are being swept into the controversy and pressured to choose between gender and race.
``This is clearly a squabble that a lot of people wish would go away,'' said Adele Alexander, a George Washington University history professor and an expert on black women's issues and the suffrage movement.
Alexander, who is black and is working as a consultant to the National Women's Museum, said she favors moving the statue and lobbying Congress to place an additional memorial in the Rotunda to commemorate Truth's life and work.
``I would very much like to see some acknowledgment of the role African American women have played in the women's rights movement represented in the Capitol, but holding up this statue isn't the way to do it,'' she said, adding that it would be wrong both in terms of art and history to attempt to carve Sojourner Truth into the existing statue.
``You don't try to put arms on the Venus de Milo,'' Alexander said. ``If you were to carve Sojourner Truth into the back of that statue, it would essentially be saying that those suffragettes prior to 1920 were not excluding black women from their efforts, which they were.''
But that's exactly the reason she should be on the same podium as the white suffrage movement leaders, Tucker said.
Tucker pointed to historical documents that make clear black women were shunned from the 19th-century suffrage movement by white women. Although the 19th Amendment did not exclude black women they - and black men - remained disenfranchised in parts of the country by Jim Crow-era laws.
Sojourner Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in Ulster County, N.Y. She gained her freedom in 1828 under a New York state law banning slavery and, in 1843, underwent a religious experience that persuaded her to change her name as she embarked on a crusade to preach against slavery and oppression of women.
At this point, however, proponents say the move is a done deal. Arguing that they have secured congressional approval, raised $75,000 and signed contracts to relocate the 7-ton, Carerra and Italian marble figures to the Rotunda sometime around May 8.
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