was a prominent abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Born a slave in New York State, she had at least three of her children sold away from her. After escaping slavery, Truth embraced evangelical religion and became involved in moral reform and abolitionist work. She collected supplies for black regiments during the Civil War and immersed herself in advocating for freedpeople during the Reconstruction period. Truth was a powerful and impassioned speaker whose legacy of feminism and racial equality still resonates today. She is perhaps best known for her stirring “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, delivered at a women’s convention in Ohio in 1851…
An evangelist, abolitionist, and feminist, Sojourner Truth (c.1979-1883) is remembered for her unschooled but remarkable voice raised in support of abolitionist, the freedmen, and women’s rights. Tales of her aggressive platform style, of her challenge to Frederick Douglass on the issue of violence against slavery (“Frederick! Is God dead?”), and her baring her breasts before a crude audience who had challenged her womanhood grace the pages of abolitionist lore.
Truth was six feet tall, blessed with a powerful voice (she spoke English with a Dutch accent), and driven deep religious conviction. Harriet Beecher Stowe attested to Truth’s personal magnetism, saying that she never “been conversant with anyone who had more of that silent and subtle power which we call personal presence than this woman.”…
Truth’s most important legacy is the tone and substance of her language. As an old woman she stumped the country providing emancipation with an eloquent epigraph: “Give ’em land and an outset, and hab teachers learn ’em to read. Den they can be somebody.”…
The Reader’s Companion to American History. Eric Foner & John A Garraty, Editors. Copyright 1991 by Houghton Miffline Harcourt Publishing Company.
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