Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Bomfree. She was a slave, born in 1797 in Dutch speaking Ulster County, New York.

She was bought and sold 4 times. In her teens (1815) she was united with another slave and they had 5 children.

In 1827, the year before New York’s law freeing slaves was to take effect, she ran away with her infant Sophia. She ran to the nearby abolitionist family, the Van Wageners. For $20 they bought her freedom.

In 1928 she began to work for a local minister. By the early 1830s she was participating in the religious revivals that were sweeping the state and she became a charismatic speaker and itinerant preacher.

In 1943 she declared the Spirit called on her to preach the truth- renaming herself Sojourner Truth.

Abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, encouraged her to give speeches about the evils of slavery.

She never learned to read or write. In 1950 she dictated her autobiography The narrative of Sojourner Truth to Oliver Gilbert, who also helped publish the book. The book brought her national recognition and she survived on the sales of the book.

She met women’s rights activists,including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, plus temperance advocates, and quickly championed both causes.

In 1851 she delivered her famous Ain’t I a Woman speech at the women’s conference on Akron, Ohio. She challenged the prevailing notions of racial and gender inferiority and inequality by reminding her listeners of her combined strength - she was nearly 6 feet tall and had female status. ( See Speech)

She eventually split from Douglass because he believed enslaved men should should come before women’s suffrage. She believed they should occur simultaneously.

In the 1950s she moved to Battle Creek where 3 of her daughters lived. She continued to speak nationally and to help slaves escape to freedom.

During the Civil War she encouraged young men to join the Union cause and organized supplies for black troops.

After the war, in 1864, she was invited to the White House by President Abraham Lincoln and became involved with the Freedmen’s Bureau - helping freed slaves find work and build new lives.

In the mid 1860s a street conductor violently tried to block her from riding. In court she won her case.

In the late 1860’s she collected 1000s of signatures on a petition to provide former slave with land - Congress never took action.

In her final years she became nearly blind and deaf. She spent her final years in Michigan and died in 1883.

Sources
National Women’s History Museum
Ain’t I a Woman transcript