SHREWSBURY, NJ —   Lorraine Stone, actor, dancer and performance artist, will portray Sojourner Truth, who escaped slavery to become a famous 19th Century speaker and activist, in a one-woman show starting at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 11 at the Quaker Meetinghouse, at the corner of Highway 35 and Sycamore Avenue, Shrewsbury.

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in Hurley, NY, in 1797. As a little girl she was sold to several masters. As a teenager she was sold to John J. Dumont, a cruel master who forced to marry another slave. Thomas, which whom she had five children. Some of her children were sold by Dumont. In 1827 she escaped her master and was taken in by a Quaker family, the Van Wageners. With their help, she won a lawsuit to have her son Peter returned to her. She was freed the following year when New York outlawed slavery.

In 1843 Ms. Truth, a tall woman with commanding voice, changed her name, left New York City and traveled throughout the country advocated for women's rights and the abolition of slavery. She was an excellent traveling speaker and drew large crowds wherever she spoke. During the Civil War, she went to Washington, D.C., where she sang and preached for funds for black soldiers serving in the Union army. After the war she settled in Washington, where she continued to preach about women's rights and attempted to persuade Congress to give Western lands to former slaves. She died on Nov. 26, 1883, in Battle Creek, MI.

Lorraine Stone portrayed Mary Bowser, a freed slave who impersonated a house slave to spy on the Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War, in the Shrewsbury Quaker Meetinghouse last year, and portrayed Sojourner Truth for the first time in the Meetinghouse two years ago. She first debuted her one-woman show, "Words, Love and Miracles," in Asbury Park in 1998. She has performed as Sojourner Truth for Local Commotion, a history performance company. She also dances and makes music with the local samba group M'Zumé Carnaval, and acts with the Dunbar Repertory Company in the Algonquin Arts Theater, Manasquan.

A resident of Eatontown, she holds a B.A. in communications arts and sciences and has worked as a newspaper and television journalist as well as director of Trinity School for the Arts at Trinity Episcopal Church, Asbury Park. She is a field membership director for the Monmouth Council of Girl Scouts. She is the mother of three sons, Dorian, Loran and Gregory.

An in-character question and answer period will conclude her performance, with light refreshments and an opportunity to meet the actor to follow. Admission is free and all are welcome. Free-will offerings to support the artist's work will be gratefully accepted.

For more information, call the Shrewsbury Quaker Meeting at (732) 741-4138 and leave a message. We will return your call within 24 hours.