Why Sit Ye Here and Die?
- storybyteskendall
- Dec 28, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 15
Written By: Maria Victoria Almarza
Opinion Column
Dec. 28, 2025
MIAMI – “Why sit ye here and die? If we say we will go to a foreign land, the famine and the pestilence are there, and there we shall die. If we sit here, we shall die. Come let us plead our cause before the whites: if they save us alive, we shall live–and if they kill us, we shall but die.” (Maria W. Stewart, 1832, para. 1)
These were the opening words to Maria W. Miller Stewart’s “Lecture Delivered at Franklin Hall” on September 21st, 1832. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, this was her second speech. It was delivered to an audience of men and women, both Black and white, and done so at a time where even women frowned upon public speaking. But Maria spoke, proudly so, even when her English was not perfect, and drew strength from her faith. As she said in her momentous speech “Methinks I heard a spiritual interrogation–‘Who shall go forward, and take off the reproach that is cast upon the people of color? Shall it be a woman?’ And my heart made this reply–‘If it is thy will, be it even so, Lord Jesus!’” (Maria W. Stewart, 1832, para. 2).
This sentence always makes me emotional. According to Britannica, her husband, James W. Stewart, had died just three years prior and was closely followed by their intimate friend David Walker. Moreover, she had her inheritance stolen by the white executors of her husband’s will. She was suddenly without the two most important people in her life, poor, and a Black woman in the 1830’s America. Her opportunities were limited and, as she described them, mind-numbing.
Instead of falling into despair, Maria placed her trust in God and answered her call to the fight for racial justice with humility and voraciousness. Not with fear for her life or anger that an omnipotent being had placed this burden on her shoulders. Strengthened by faith, she fought to open up doors for herself.
In the book These Truths by Jill Lepore, we see how Stewart asked for a seat among the greats. She told William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the Liberator, that she wanted to write for his newspaper which, according to the Library of Congress, featured the likes of Louisa May Alcott, Frederick Douglass, the Grimké sisters, and Catherine Beecher. Her writing for social justice was a life-long practice and only a fragment of her advocacy efforts.
Later in life she moved to New York City where she taught Black children, remained politically active, and joined a female literary society. In 1861, she opened a school in Washington D.C.. There, she taught the children of enslaved families fleeing the Confederate States during the Civil War. In her last years, she worked at the Freedmen’s Hospital and Asylum as the matron. This hospital was part of the Freedmen’s Bureau’s work during the transition from slavery post-Civil War. She died December 17th, 1879.
Maria witnessed the emancipation of slavery and the country’s subsequent disregard of Black American’s rights. I think of what it must have been like to advocate for abolition, witness it happen, celebrate, aid reconstruction, see your community finally –though partially– represented in government, then die with these newfound rights stripped away.
Maria’s hard work was not in vain, but her mission has not yet been accomplished. She challenges us to continue fighting for equality, even when it is dangerous and terrifying, because there is no other option. When asked the question of “why sit ye here and die?” I responded with this essay, and will continue my fight for a more equal and just Union in this column.
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