New Britain Herald
May 11, 1927
Noted Character of Old Slave Days
"Pinky" to Return to Plymouth Church Pulpit
New York, May 11 (AP)
A negro woman who at the age of 9 years was "sold for freedom" by Henry Ward Beecher In the pulpit of Plymouth church, Brooklyn, 67 years ago, will return there Sunday evening, as the central figure in the 8Oth anniversary of Beecher's first sermon in the church.
She is Mrs. James Hunt, wife of a negro lawyer of Washington, D.C and was the slave girl "Pinky" whose name was a by-word in Civil war days.
"Pinkys" sale from the pulpit of Plymouth church was arranged by the Rev. Mr. Beecher when he learned that her grandmother, who had purchased her freedom for slavery, had been able only to "lease" the little girl. Beecher then prepared his now historic sermon and preached it in Plymouth church while "Pinky" stood trembling in the pulpit.
The result was oversubscription by $1,100 of the $900 necessary to purchase the child's freedom. Women wept hysterically. Men tossed money into the offering receptacles. And the child was freed.
"Pinky" is a grandmother now. The Rev. Dr. J. Stanley Durkee, present pastor of Plymouth church, located her in Washington and invited her back to the great scene of her youth, and she has accepted.
"Pinky's" real name was Sally Maria Diggs. Born a slave in Port Tobacco, Charles county, Md., she was separated at seven from her mother by the latter's sale to a slave trader in Alexandria, Va. Soon afterwards she and her grandmother were sold to a trader in Baltimore. The grandparent, however, had saved enough money to buy her own freedom and partially effect "Pinky's".
After her sale "for freedom" "Pinky" lived with the family of a brother of John Falkener Blake, of Alexandria, who had executed the sale. She was educated privately in the north before going to Washington and there, after graduating from Howard University, taught in Washington public schools. Dr. Durkee was president of Howard University when she attended it. He will preach next Sunday.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014519/1927-05-11/ed-1/seq-4/