Kitt Potter announced to a packed city council chamber at Kingston City Hall on Sep. 28, “Our conversations with the arts will never be easy. But who needs easy? Easy is boring! Art is fire!”
Potter’s speech came at the end of a two hour emotional ceremony celebrating the installation of “Sojourner Truth: First Steps to Freedom,” a bronze cast statue created by Trina Greene. The statue depicts 29-year-old Truth, then known as Isabella Van Wagenen carrying her daughter in her arms. “This statue eloquently expresses the brilliance, determination and pain of a mother seeking justice and freedom,” said Ulster County Executive Jen Metzger in her speech during the installation ceremony.
The statue is not only the center of adoration, but also controversy, as it makes its first public appearance since its intended installation at SUNY New Paltz in 2021. Its original proposed debut was met with strong pushback from members of the campus community, most notably the Black Studies department which announced that they would be boycotting the ceremony in a statement made on their Instagram in September of 2021.
In their statement, the department detailed their grievances with the installation of the statue. They stated that the department was not notified of the desire to install the statue, was not given a say in who the artist would be and was not given a timeline of the process.
The department felt this oversight on behalf of the president was representative of how Black people have historically been left out of the conversation. The department received support from across campus, and former SUNY New Paltz President Donald P. Christian postponed the installation indefinitely.
Since then, the statue, which is owned by SUNY New Paltz, had been kept in a warehouse until Potter reached out to Wheeler. Potter said in an interview with The Oracle, “maybe the campus needs some time. The campus community needs to heal. So I said [to Wheeler] bring her to me, bring her to City Hall … ease the tension and give everybody time to continue the dialogue, continue listening with open hearts and have the celebration of this beautiful art.”
Wheeler would pick Kingston City Hall as the home of the statue for the next 11 months. He decided on touring the statue before returning it to the SUNY New Paltz campus. After its stay at Kingston City Hall, the statue will move to Newburgh before returning to and being installed at SUNY New Paltz in 2026.
The ceremony in Kingston included performances by the Women’s Drumsong Orchestra and Maxwell Kofi Donker, a passionate portrayal of Truth by actress Aixa Kendricks, poetry by Ulster County’s first poet laureate Kate Aymes and speeches by various prominent community members. Throughout the ceremony, callbacks to this original controversy reverberated.
In a speech to the attendees, Chair of Black Studies Department Welder McWilliams said, “Sojourner Truth lived her life in a way not because she hoped that one day she would have a monument. She lived her life in a certain way, because she felt compelled to build a better world — a world that would be inclusive of her race, a world that would be inclusive of her gender. A world that would make an effort to listen to any and all voices in the room,” he said.
“Black people need to have a say in expressing the narrative of their heroes and their culture … The Black Studies department’s position is that we are more concerned with moving in a way that would exemplify the spirit of Sojourner Truth, more than we are concerned about the statue that may symbolize Sojourner Truth. It is important that as we celebrate this statue, as we celebrate this likeness, we ask ourselves are we moving in the same spirit as Sojourner Truth? Are we, in fact, trying to make a better world?”
Wheeler also spoke about the situation he inherited as president and how he made his decision on what to do with the statue. “I finally had an epiphany about a year ago that Sojourner is the thing — sojourn, travel, move, never sit still, never deny the difficulties, but understand that if you try to sweep those under the carpet, you get nowhere.”
“We must make space for difficult dialogue, and boy do I know about difficult dialogue this year, but I can’t be president without having the authority, the responsibility and the accountability. I leaned into that, and through the process of sojourning myself, opening myself up to the frailties of Darrell Wheeler and reaching out to colleagues across campus, and across spheres. We came up with a plan that will allow the statue to be shared.”
When directly asked about the statue’s return to New Paltz, McWilliams told The Oracle, “As far as this statue’s eventual return to the New Paltz campus, our position has not changed. We still do not believe that this particular statue should be installed on the New Paltz campus.”
Displayed along with “First Steps To Freedom” were historic court documents, taken from the city archives, that told the story of Truth returning to Ulster County to secure the return of her son, Peter, who had been sold to a plantation in Alabama. To do this, Truth successfully won a lawsuit against a white man — the first successful lawsuit by a Black woman against a white man in American history.
Potter insists that despite the wounds incurred over the statue, Truth’s story must be told. “She will eventually be permanently installed on campus. A lot of people won’t like that. That’s public art. It’s juicy. It’s not easy, but it’s necessary … I hope that with time, there’ll be time for some healing, so that when she gets to campus, all can celebrate this beautiful work.”
Potter sees a bright future for the statue, hoping it inspires students to embrace the legacy of Truth and help tell her story. “Because we are New York State, our slave records are all intact. My hope is we can find [in the records] Sophia, her brothers and sisters, the descendants of Sophia, her brother and sisters, and wouldn’t it be amazing if the students can be working on that and write articles and unite Sojourner’s children.”
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