Essay on "Why Nurses Should Honor Great American Human Rights Leaders"

Essay 2 pages (1229 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

"She agitated for the inclusion of blacks in the Union Army," and once blacks were welcomed into the Union Army, Sojourner " ... volunteered by bringing them food and clothes" (www.pbs.org).

When she got involved in the women's suffrage movement, she became friends with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, both powerful leaders in the movement to allow women to vote. (It still amazes me that women in America were not given the right to vote until 1920! A whole host of male politicians kept women from the vote for all those years, and to me that stands out as a monstrous denial of human rights). But Sojourner became estranged from those early women's suffrage leaders due to the " ... increasingly racist language of women's groups," and because Stanton said she would not support giving freed slaves the vote if women continued to be denied the right to vote.

Among the more noted speeches that Sojourner gave as part of her involvement in the women's movement was the iconic "Ain't I a Woman," which she presented at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851.

" ... That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-

puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no many could head me! Ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man -- when I could get it -- and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have born thirteen

children, and seen most all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I

a woman?" (www.nps.gov).

Among the many humanitarian efforts that Sojourner participated in, the Underground Railroad is perhaps best known in today's society. The Underground Railroad involved a "vast network of people" that aided fugitive slaves in their quest to get north of the Mason-Dixon line, where friendlier communities would take them in and give them work (often in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Canada (www.pbs.org). Hundreds of white and black people began helping slaves escape to freedom beginning in about 1810 through 1850. According to PBS, an estimated 100,000 slaves were helped to freedom and to jobs in those forty years.

In conclusion, nurses today are in a very profound way helping people be freed from injuries and sickness. In Sojourner's day, people opened their homes for these runaway slaves, giving them food and rest and clothing. The places that opened their doors to runaway slaves were called "stations" and "depots"; and the generous people who helped them move from one station to the next, were called "conductors" (www.pbs.org). Sojourner will always be remembered as a humanitarian, activist, and gifted speaker -- at a time when her talent and power was needed the most.

Works Cited

American Nurses Association. (2010). Position Statement: The Nurse's Role in Ethics

And Human Rights: Protecting and Promoting Individual Worth, Dignity, and Human

Rights in Practice Settings. Retrieved September 10, 2015, from http://www.nursingworld.org.

KCET. (2009). Africans in America: The Underground Railroad. Public Broadcasting

Service. Retrieved September 10, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org.

KCET (2008). This Far by Faith. Sojourner Truth. Public Broadcasting Service. Retrieved September 10, 2015, from http://www.pbs.org.

National Park Service. (2007). Sojourner Truth. Library of Congress. Retrieved September 10,

2015, from http://www.nps.gov.

United Nations. (1948). The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Preamble. Retrieved September 10, 2015, from http://www.un.org. READ MORE

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