So Tall within: The Legacy of Sojourner Truth

Abstract

In an article framed by the story of Sojourner Truth’s struggle to reclaim her child from slavery, Professor Davis argues that those who defied slavery and its sequelae by voicing parental claims enriched American democratic theory. They did so by revealing, first, the significance of family abrogation as an aspect of the slave's civil death, and then, the importance to civil society of a democratic citizen's liberty in matters of family.