Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth could neither read nor write.  But when this tall African-American woman strode on stage to speak out against slavery, she held everyone’s attention.  She began almost every speech with the same words:  “Children, I talk to God and God talks to me.”

Sojourner Truth was born a slave named Isabella on a farm in New York State.  Before she was freed, Sojourner Truth had several children, most of whom were sold into slavery by her masters.

She gained her freedom after New York abolished slavery, when she was about 30 years old.  She then moved to New York City, where she worked as a servant.  Deeply religious, she sometimes preached on street corners, both against slavery and on behalf of women’s rights.  

Then in 1843, she came to believe that God wanted her to “travel up and down the land” preaching his word. 

She took the name Sojourner (which means wanderer) Truth and began traveling through the country, speaking wherever she could find an audience.  She suffered abuse and physical attacks, but her eloquence made her famous.  In 1864, Abraham Lincoln invited her to the White House and appointed her counselor to freedmen in the capital.

After the Civil War, Sojourner Truth continued to work tirelessly to help the newly freed slaves and improve the lives of women.

"Lemonade Lucy" Hayes

The press jokingly called her "Lemonade Lucy," because no alcoholic beverages were served in the White House while she was First Lady.  But Lucy Hayes, wife of the 19th President, was widely respected as a kind an intelligent woman.  She was, her husband Rutherford B. Hayes said, "the Golden Rule incarnate."  

A doctor's daughter, Lucy Ware Webb grew up in Ohio.  She graduated from Wesleyan Female Seminary, a college, in 1850.  Two years later, she married "Rud" Hayes, who became a congressman and governor of Ohio.  Lucy had a keen interest in politics and helped her husband in his career.  


She worked to outlaw slavery and alcohol, and raised money for the poor.  Because President and Mrs. Hayes came from Ohio, the rule that no liquor could be served in the White House was called “the Ohio idea.”

President Hayes and his wife had seven sons and one daughter.

Lucy Hayes was a thoroughly modern First Lady.   She was the first one to hold a college degree.  And during her time in the White House, a host of new inventions were introduced there.

These included indoor plumbing, telephones, typewriters, and record players.  But Lucy Hayes also had traditional values.  She held family prayers each morning, as well as frequent songfests around the sitting-room piano.   And she introduced the Easter egg roll on the White House lawn, an event that has been held ever since.

Seattle

Near the center of the city, on the site of the 1962 World’s Fair, stands the Space Needle.  From the top of this tower, visitors can admire the magnificent setting of Seattle, the largest city in Washington state and the U.S. Northwest.

To the west, across the island-dotted waters of Puget Sound, rise the Olympic Mountains.  They protect the city from extreme heat and cold.  Far to the southeast looms snow-covered Mt. Rainier, rising more than 14,000 feet from sea level.  To the east is the stately Cascade Range.   Scattered everywhere are the forests that give the city its start as a lumbering center in the 1890s.

Named after Seattle, a friendly Indian chief, the city grew slowly until the 1940s.  Then the Boeing Company made it a center of airplane manufacturing.  In the 1980s, many new electronics companies attracted thousands of workers.

Once a small isolated town, Seattle is becoming a major international city.   Because it is a Pacific port, Seattle is a center for trade with Asia.   Its residents include a large percentage of Asian-Americans.

Many of Seattle’s oldest families are descendants of “Mercer girls.”  They were marriageable women brought from the east by Asa Mercer to wed lonely pioneer men.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

When World War II began, few people outside the army had ever heard of a 50-year-old career officer named Dwight D. Eisenhower.  But soon everyone knew “Ike,” who became one of the greatest generals of the century and much-loved two-term President.

Born in Texas, Eisenhower graduated from West Point in 1915.  He was a starting halfback on the West Point football team until he hurt his knee.

He rose rapidly through the ranks, and in 1942 was put in command of U.S. troops in Europe.  Then he directed the successful Allied invasions of North Africa and Italy.   And in 1944, he planned the largest invasion in history.

On June 6, more than 150,000 Allied troops under his command landed on the beaches of Normandy, France.  Eisenhower’s ability to win the cooperation of soldiers of many nationalities was a key factor in the Allied victory over Germany.

World War II made Eisenhower a national hero.   Although he resisted invitations to become a political leader at first, he finally agreed to run for President.  “I like Ike,” campaign buttons said.   The nation agreed, electing him in 1952 and again in 1956.  

As President, he helped bring an end to the Korean War, and he took a strong position against Communism….although some people criticized him for remaining aloof from controversial issues. 

Eisenhower’s down-to-earth manner and kindness won him the nation’s affection.

Ralph Bunche

Ralph Bunche was a skillful diplomat who played a key role at the United Nations during its early years.  His efforts on behalf of world peace won him the Nobel Prize in 1950.

Orphaned at age 11, Bunche was raised by his grandmother in Los Angeles.   He graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles summa cum laude (with highest honors).   In 1934, he became the first African-American to earn a Ph.D. in government and international relations from Harvard.  After teaching, for several years, he worked in Africa for the U.S. during World War II.  As a State Department officer in 1944, he helped to organize the United Nations.

In 1945, Bunche became the first black to head a division of the U.S. State Department.

Bunche began his 25-year career at the UN in 1946.  Three years later, he negotiated cease-fire agreements between Israel and Arab countries that had invaded the newly formed nation.  For this accomplishment, Bunche was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first black to win that award.

After leading other UN peacekeeping missions, Bunche became the world body’s second-ranking officer, the under secretary-general, in 1967.  Although his job focused on international affairs, Bunche was also committed to the struggle of American blacks.  Thought seriously ill at the time, he joined the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand that African-Americans be allowed to vote.

The Camp David Accords

The presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was the setting for a historic moment in September, 1978.  With the help of U.S. President Jimmy Carter, the leaders of Egypt and Israel reached agreements that would end a 30-year state of war between their countries.

Israel was created by the United Nations in 1948 as a homeland for the Jewish people.  But Arab countries, including Egypt, denied its right to exist.  Arab armies attacked, but the outnumbered Israelis threw them back.   In the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel gained control of the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.  All peace efforts failed.

Then, in 1978, Carter invited Egyptian Premier Anwar Sadat and Israeli Premier Menachem Begin to Camp David to restart a stalled round of talks.  After 12 days, two accords were reached.  One was a plan for the return of the Sinai to Egypt and for peace between the countries.  The second called for self-rule for the Palestinian Arabs in other Israeli-occupied territories.

A treaty based on the first accord was signed in March, 1979.   Egypt became the first Arab country to recognize the first Arab country to recognize Israel.  Because the second accord involved Arabs who did not agree to it, it was not carried out at that time.

Pocahontas

In 1608, Captain John Smith, one of the leaders of the English settlement at Jamestown in Virginia, was captured by Indians.  According to a book Smith wrote in later years, he was about to be clubbed to death when Pocahontas, “the king’s dearest daughter…got his head in her arms and laid her own upon his to save him from death.”

No one knows for sure if Smith’s story is true.  Yet there is no doubt that Pocahontas was a young princess of the Powhatan tribe who befriended the settlers, helped them in many ways, and convinced her father, the chief, to give the foreigners food during the harsh winter.

Relations between the Indians and the settlers were not good, however.  In 1613, Pocahontas was taken hostage by the settlers.  During her stay in the colony, Pocahontas learned English and became a Christian.  Her marriage to John Rolfe, a tobacco planter, resulted in an eight year truce between Indians and settlers.

In 1616, Pocahontas traveled to England with her husband.  She was treated like royalty by the English, who found her charming and beautiful.  But before she could return to Virginia in 1617, she was taken ill and died at the age of 22.

Pocahontas’ real name as Matoaka.  “Pocahontas” was a nickname meaning “the playful one.”  After she was married, Pocahontas was known as Lady Rebecca Rolfe.