HAYDENVILLE - On May 25, Barbara Allen, the sixth generation great-granddaughter of famed equality activist Sojourner Truth, will deliver a sermon at Haydenville Congregational Church and also participate in the annual celebration at the Truth statue in Florence.

Allen will preach at the 10 a.m. Sunday service in Haydenville and then participate in the 2 p.m. memorial celebration of her great-grandmother, which includes the presentation of scholarships to high school students active in the cause of social justice. This is the 20th anniversary of the event held at the Sojourner Truth statue on Pine Street in Florence, in the neighborhood where the 19th century activist lived from 1843 to 1857.

Allen currently serves as the Operations and Human Resources Director for Habitat for Humanity in Kalamazoo, Michigan, a neighboring city of Battle Creek, where Truth eventually settled. She is also the author of several children's books about her great-grandmother (https://www.sixth-generation.com)

For her sermon, Allen told church leaders she would preach on the religious conversion of her great-grandmother, born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree, and how that experience led her to change her name and become a sojouring preacher and advocate for a number of reform and social justice causes.

The worship service and the celebration at the Sojourner Truth statue are open to the public.