Last Thursday, November 18, marked the birthday of Sojourner Truth.  She was born in the year 1767.  She was an abolitionist and women’s rights activist, whom herself, had been born into slavery.  During her life, she would fall in love with a slave from a neighboring farm, but be forbidden to wed him. Instead, she would be forced to marry, and have children with, a much older man, also a slave.

Although promised by her owner, John Dumont, that her freedom would come well before the New York Emancipation Act in 1827, Sojourner would have to escape slavery when Dumont reneged on his promise. In 1826, Sojourner would escape with her infant daughter, Sophia.

It was in 1851, that she attended the Ohio Womens’ Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, where she delivered her famous speech, later known as “Ain’t I A Woman?”.  Please watch this speech, performed by the narrator of Sweet Blackberry’s, “The Journey of Henry ‘Box’ Brown”, by the incredible Alfre Woodard.

“Only Passing Through: The Story of Sojourner Truth” is a wonderful book for children about this remarkable woman. It’s illustrated by Sweet Blackberry’s, “Garrett’s Gift” illustrator R. Gregory Christie.

I learned firsthand how difficult it can be to write a story for small children about slavery when writing “The Journey of Henry ‘Box’ Brown.” Most parents shy away from the subject for obvious reasons. But while it is a horrific chapter in our history, and a child’s young  mind is delicate, these stories of individuals meeting challenges with unflinching determination and perseverance, illustrate for our children that they needn’t ever feel powerless to affect change in their lives.

Welcome to Sweet Blackberry!

We would like to extend an especially warm welcome to those of you newly expressing interest in Sweet Blackberry and our mission!  For those of you that have been along for the ride, we would also like to give you all a big thank you.  We are very excited to tell all of you about the many new things Sweet Blackberry has in store!

For those of you seeking insight on exactly what Sweet Blackberry is, we are a non-profit organization dedicated to using the power of media to teach, by bringing to life little known stories of African American achievement that inspire and empower all young children.

It is our mission at Sweet Blackberry to share, through DVDs, books, and other media, triumphant stories of individuals surmounting the odds and making invaluable contributions to our society.  These stories help illustrate for our children the concept that tremendous obstacles are actually opportunities for greatness.  By harnessing the power of media to teach, the Sweet Blackberry foundation offers parents and educators an opportunity to plant seeds that inspire the soul.

We hope that with this blog we are able to spark dialogue concerning our most valuable resource, our children.  We want you, our global community at large to see this as an opportunity not to just learn but also to teach and to discuss.  Action is not taken without some source of prompting someone somewhere to make a difference.  Power is not measured by the choice of one individual but that individual’s influence to mobilize others as a collective.  Sweet Blackberry’s stories are about motivating, inspiring the community at large.  We hope to foster change in every community.  We encourage you to join us and contribute with comments, suggestions, and discussion.

As I said earlier, we became a non-profit organization last year!

So now any donation or purchase you make through Sweet Blackberry will be a tax deduction.

We’re also currently working on partnerships with other organizations who share the same philosophies that we do about children and community.

We have a whole new website and you can now find us on Facebook and can follow us on Twitter.

twitter.com/swtblackberry

facebook.com/SweetBlackberryOrg

Please take a look around the website. Check out our Facebook page, and follow us on Twitter. I think it’s going to be great to have even more of a direct communication with you. I seriously welcome your thoughts, opinions, ideas, questions and suggestions, and there’s a lot of great stuff coming up in the next coming months, so please stay tuned.

Thanks for your continued support!

Karyn Parsons