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Sojourner Truth Quote
“If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.” Sojourner Truth, c. 1797, New York
Sojourner Truth Biography
Sojourner Truth was born about 1797 in New York to slaves named James and Betsey and given the name Isabella. As a child she had several masters and her siblings were sold away.
Isabella suffered through the indignities of slavery - a forced “marriage” and the selling away of her children - and experienced a deep spiritual faith in God. Surviving and overcoming her enslavement, she heeded the call of God to a new name, Sojourner Truth, and became a travelling preacher.
Sojourner Truth, armed with her commanding presence - she was six feet tall - spoke out for women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. She was often challenged when she proclaimed a woman could do any job a man could do. To silence her critics who thought she was a man dressed as a woman - she would open her blouse and show her breasts.
Sojourner Truth could not read or write but in 1850 her dictated memoirs were published as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. She became a well known speaker at anti-slavery and woman’s rights lectures and in 1851 she delivered her best know speech ‘Ain’t I A Woman?’ at the Women’s Rights Convention.
In 1857 Sojourner Truth moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, possibly to work with Quakers who had set up a station on the Underground Railway.
During the Civil War Sojourner Truth lived in Washington, DC, raising funds for Black Union soldiers and returned to Battle Creek to continue her battles for women’s rights. She actively worked for the election of U. S. Grant and attmepted to vote in the 1872 election.
Sojourner Truth died in Battle Creek, Michigan on November 26, 1883.
Books, video about Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth: Ain’t I A Woman by Pat McKissick - a particularly fine job relating the major incidents in Truth’s life and provide brief biographical sketches of the many people she knew and worked with. Ages 9-12
Narrative of Sojourner Truth; A Bondswoman of Olden Time, With a History of Her Labors and Correspondence Drawn from Her ‘Book of Life’: Also, a memo -- by Olive Gilbert - see above in bio text.
Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol - an absorbing and enlightening study of the well-known feminist and antislavery activist that proposes a few unsettling alterations to the record.
My Soul is a Witness: African American Women’s Spirituality - anthology of poems, stories, and personal narratives by such writers as Maya Angelou and Alice Walker are witness to ways the Spirit expresses itself in the lives of African-American women.
LINKS FOR LEARNING : SOJOURNER TRUTH
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