Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree to enslaved parents in 1797 in Ulster County, New York. Under the gradual emancipation laws of that state, she remained enslaved until 1828. When Isabella experienced a religious conversion experience in 1843, she took the name “Sojourner Truth.” She began traveling the country, preaching what she called “God’s truth.” A powerful and compelling speaker, she became particularly famous for her speeches on abolition and her insistence on equal rights for women of all races. Her work and beliefs led her to Northampton, Massachusetts, where she joined a utopian society. Here she encountered famous abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Sojourner Truth dictated her memoirs, which were published in 1853, as the Narrative of Sojourner Truth a Northern Slave. She died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Narrative of Sojourner Truth, A Northern Slave, Emancipated From Bodily Serviture By the State of New York in 1828. Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, American Centuries. https://americancenturies.org/collection/l00-069/. Accessed on October 16, 2024.
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