Sojourner Truth



February 24, 2002

Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 with the name Isabella in Ulster County, New York. After slavery was finally abolished in New York, she found refuge with a Quaker family named Van Wagener and took their name. She did missionary work among the poor of New York City, and in 1843 she set out on her own as a traveling preacher. She then changed her name to Soujourner Truth. 

As was common in that era, religious fervor led her into association with reformers who hoped to create a better world. Tall, gaunt, and commanding, she lent her powerful talents as a speaker to the antislavery movement as well as women's rights. At the Civil War's end she worked as counselor to the newly freed slaves who gathered in Washington. Hoping to aid in their transition to freedom, she circulated a petition for public lands to be set aside in the West for a "Negro state." Sojourner Truth died in 1883.