Sojourner Truth
b.1797 - 1883
“There is a great stir about colored men, getting their rights (they received their rights after the Civil War), but not a word about the colored woman; and if colored men get their rights and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the woman and it will be as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring.”
- Sojourner Truth, 1867, New York
Born Isabella Baumfree, Sojourner suffered under several slave owners. One owner failed to honor the New York Anti-Slavery Law, so Isabella escaped with her daughter. During a religious conversion experience she saw her destiny to preach and claimed the name Sojourner Truth. She preached against slavery first and later gave speeches on women's rights. She gave a rousing and significant speech at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio titled: Ain't I a Woman.
Sojourner is today recognized as a powerful and influential speaker, feminist, social reformer and human rights activist. Though she could not read nor write, a friend, Olive Gilbert, transcribed what Sojourner dictated and her memoir, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, was published in 1850. With funds from the sale of this book and of cartes-de-visite (see image on this page) she was able to purchase her home in Northampton, New York for $300.
"During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit black troops for the Union Army; after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the Federal Government for former slaves...however, after going to court to recover her son, in 1828 she became the first black woman to win such a case against a white man." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth)
In 2014 Sojourner Truth was listed in the Smitsonian Institution's list of the 100 Most Significant Americans. (The Smithsonian, November 17. Retrieved Aug. 20, 2017.)