Scene 5: Connection
1820s-1860s: The beginning of a vision—forged in memory, relationships, and writing.
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In 1860, as young Lawson Scruggs played near his home in Liberty, Virginia, enslaved women still toiled nearby—used, commanded, and forgotten by history. He couldn’t have fathomed that he would one day write about and celebrate their lives.
Perhaps he remembered the sounds of chains, or the cries of children sold from their mothers’ arms. Either way, he would grow old with their stories. And by the time he sat down to record their lives in middle age, honoring them had become his calling.
One story in particular seemed to capture the reality of slavery in a way that stayed with him. The girl’s name was Isabella when she was born. Later, the world would know her as Sojourner Truth—and Scruggs researched her life with reverence.
In the early 1800s, Isabella walked mile after mile, carrying her infant child, hoping that this time she would find her father. She had been separated from him since the age of nine, and a previous attempt to see him had failed. Isabella spent her early years living as no human being should—enslaved and crammed in a cellar often filled with water and mud. She struggled with language—she spoke Dutch; her master, English. She suffered “terribly, terribly” from the cold.
Her father, known as “Bomefree,” Dutch for “tree,” had once stood tall and straight. But age bent him. By the time Isabella found him again, he was decrepit and crippled, blind and alone. Considered a burden by his owners, he had been set free only after he was no longer of economic use. His wife, Mau-Mau Bett, had recently died.
“Oh,” he exclaimed, “I had thought God would take me first. Mau-Mau was so much smarter than I, and could get about and take care of herself. And I am so old, and so helpless. What is to become of me? I can’t do anything anymore—my children are all gone, and here I am left helpless and alone.”
He cried, in despair, like a child.
Isabella ached for him over the years. She tried to visit him. The first time, she walked twelve miles with her baby in her arms but couldn’t find him. He was often passed from home to home—wherever someone was willing to take him in.
And so she tried again. This time, she found him, sitting on a roadside rock. It was a warm, clear day. He was hobbling—more a creep than a walk—blind and wandering. His hair was white like wool, she remembered. When Isabella called out, Bomefree recognized her voice immediately. They met and embraced. Together, they took a carriage back to the cellar where he had once lived, and he began to lament.
“I have no one to give me a cup of cold water—why should I live and not die?”
Isabella yearned to care for him, but she could not. She tried to console him. She had heard rumors that all the slaves in New York would be freed in ten years, and then she could come take care of him.
“Oh, my child,” he said, “I cannot live that long.”
He didn’t. Bomefree’s body and spirit deteriorated. He was befriended by an elderly Black woman named Sloan. He begged her to stay and tend to him, pleading for her to help wash and mend him so that “he might once more be decent and comfortable; for he was suffering dreadfully with filth and vermin that had collected upon him.” He died, frozen and starving.
Scruggs would later refer to slavery as “those dark days of our history.” Isabella and her family endured those days—as did Scruggs’ family and ancestors.
Her life went on. What choice did she have? She eventually escaped slavery, changed her name to Sojourner Truth, and became a voice for the voiceless. For decades, she traveled the North, speaking out against slavery, and later for women’s rights and the needs of newly freed people. Scruggs must have wept as he learned of her story and others like hers. Her legacy endured, in part, because of Scruggs’ book Women of Distinction.
He wrote of her resilience, courage, and strength: “The world has indeed had but one Sojourner Truth.”
For his book, day after day, Scruggs pored over newspaper articles, books, letters—every source he could find that told the stories of Black women in slavery. These stories lived inside him.
Some, like Zelia R. Ball Page, escaped the grip of slavery thanks to a mother’s cunning. Zelia’s mother had her pretend to be enslaved, walking under cover of darkness beside a white physician. The charade kept her safe until they reached Boston. There, she learned to read—and later teach and lead.
Others, like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, traveled north and wept at the sight of free land. Still others, like Harriet Tubman, turned their suffering into salvation—nineteen trips along the Underground Railroad, over three hundred lives rescued. Scruggs called her and those who worked with her God’s “agencies of love and mercy.”
Though he himself had not grown up in chains, they weighed on him. His parents carried them. He heard the stories and prayers of his family, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. He knew the silence of men and women who dared not speak. And now, he studied and wrote about the lives of women who had suffered so deeply.
In learning and telling these women’s stories, Lawson Scruggs was not merely standing witness. They changed him—and motivated him throughout his medical career. His deep connection to the people of his race helped him overcome obstacles and shaped his vision for building a better health system.
After all, if a health system isn’t grounded in care for, compassion with, and connection to people—then what is it?
Correction: An earlier version of this scene misstated parts of the timeline concerning Isabella, her father, and the abolition of slavery. These errors have been corrected, and the audio has been updated accordingly.
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Sources and Notes
Scruggs, Lawson A. Women of Distinction. 1893. P. 6-13, 48-57, 65-68, 153-154. There are some discrepancies between the Scruggs’ account of Sojourner’s life, and her own (such as the names of her parents). The narrative above is based on her own account:
Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth.
Painter, Nell Irvin. Sojourner Truth.
Inspiring women.
Horrific events.
I cannot even begin to imagine being born in those times. I ask myself who I would choose to be if I could have been any of the characters you describe - white, black, brave?