Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott are considered invaluable players towards the fight for women suffrage. Few would think how much of a role Sojourner Truth played in advocating women's rights, and captivating the attention of period celebrity, Harriet Beecher Stowe. Lebedun explains how one meeting with Sojourner Truth caused Stowe to write an introduction to one of Sojourner's narratives, and inspired her to get a sculptor to create a work in Sojourner's image. Lebedun's aim is to indicate that an illiterate, uneducated, former slave could influence one of the most prestigious writers of the period.
Carleton Mabee. The New England Quarterly, Vol. 61, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-529
In a effort to discover the real relationship between Sojourner Truth and President Lincoln, Mabee sifts through past historical documents and accounts to prove that many events that supposedly took place between the President and Sojourner were fabricated or overly exaggerated. There exists this notion that Sojourner Truth had influence in some of Lincoln's greatest achievements. As Mabee points out, there exist a lot of myths of what took place between Sojourner and Lincoln (some painting Lincoln as overly sympathetic to slaves and some overly aggrandizing the relation between Sojourner Truth and Lincoln). The Author conveys that it is improbable that Sojourner advised the president on National Policy, educated Lincoln on the hardships of slavery, tried to get her face on a bill, and convinced him to enlist more blacks into the army. In addition, Lincoln wasn't all that close to Sojourner, nor did he get her a position in the Freedmens Bureau. The author does this, not necessarily try to take away from the image of Lincoln and Sojourner, but to indicate that many past publications about the President and
Sojourner were merely false.
Washington, Patricia. "Political Resistance." Black Women in America, Second Edition. Ed. Darlene ClarkHine. Oxford African American Studies Center. Mon Nov 16 22:24:23 EST 2009.
Patricia Washington references Sojourner Truth in an attempt to convey the political resistance exhibited in America (ranging from abolition to modern day civil rights). Sojourner Truth took great risks in openly denouncing slavery and advocating women's rights. Patricia concludes that Sojourner and others like her fought to stop dichotomy between gender and race. The risks these women took were to resist the politically unfair practices of the time.
From the information you have brought up it would seem that Truth was a very influential person. In your second source the author tries to dispel the rumor that Truth educated Lincoln about slavery and tries to prove that what people knew about the two were wrong. Could it be that even though Truth may not have directly influenced Lincoln the risks that she took and goals that she had could have inadvertently influenced Lincoln to change his mind about slaves.
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