An image of the Sojourner Truth memorial bust on display at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Emancipation Hall. Photo submitted

As Cynthia Farrell Johnson ‘76 (Art History) watched the unveiling of a memorial bust dedicated to Sojourner Truth at the U.S. Capitol in April, she thought of her alma mater.

“A flood of memories came rushing back from my days at SUNY New Paltz,” she said. “The books and periodicals that I shelved in the World Study Center made me curious about how people lived beyond our borders. The seeds planted in the Sojourner Truth Library blossomed into a fascinating career conducting educational, cultural and media activities at home and abroad on behalf of the people of the United States.”

Johnson attended the April 28 event on behalf of Corinne Nyquist (Library), with whom she worked as a staff assistant in the 1970s. Farrell, an artist and former State Department Cultural Affairs Officer, is retired and lives in the Washington D.C. area.

Nyquist has conducted research on Truth’s local legacy and said she has answered questions, helped researchers, made presentations, organized programs for teachers, and worked with those here and elsewhere seeking to promote her memory.

Nyquist, who was director of the library’s World Study Center when the library was dedicated to Truth in 1971, provided the National Congress of Black Women, the organization that campaigned for Truth to be recognized in the Capitol, with background on Truth’s life.

“It is only natural that questions relating to Sojourner Truth would come to the library named for her in the county in which she was born and lived for 32 years,” said Nyquist.

The unveiling of Artis Lane’s sculpture of Truth marks the first time an African-American woman has been honored with a bust in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center in Emancipation Hall. Truth was a women’s rights activist and abolitionist, who was born a slave in Ulster County in the late 1700s.

Attendees at the event, which was spearheaded by the National Congress of Black Women, included about 25 descendants of Sojourner Truth, First Lady Michelle Obama, actress Cicely Tyson, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.