At a time when the cooperation between white abolitionists and African Americans was limited, as was the alliance between the woman suffrage movement and the abolitionists, Sojourner Truth was a figure that brought all factions together by her skills as a public speaker and by her common sense. She worked with acumen to claim and actively gain rights for all human beings, starting with those who were enslaved, but not excluding women, the poor, the homeless, and the unemployed. Truth believed that all people could be enlightened about their actions and choose to behave better if they were educated by others, and persistently acted upon these beliefs.

Born a slave in New York state around 1797 and given the name Isabella Baumfree, Sojourner Truth soon believed that God wanted her to be a travelling preacher who always spoke the truth. She was sold three times early in her life; her third owner promised

“A triumph of scholarly maturity, imagination, and narrative art.”—Arnold Rampersad Sojourner Truth: formerly enslaved person and unforgettable abolitionist of the mid-nineteenth century, a figure of imposing physique, a riveting preacher and spellbinding singer who dazzled listeners with her wit and originality. Straight-talking and unsentimental, Truth became an early national symbol for strong Black women—indeed, for all strong women. In this modern classic of scholarship and sympathetic understanding, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter goes beyond the myths, words, and photographs to uncover the life of a complex woman who was born into slavery and died a legend.

'I am a woman's rights. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I am as strong as any man that is now' A former slave and one of the most powerful orators of her time, Sojourner Truth fought for the equal rights of Black women throughout her life. This selection of her impassioned speeches is accompanied by the words of other inspiring African-American female campaigners from the nineteenth century. One of twenty new books in the bestselling Penguin Great Ideas series. This new selection showcases a diverse list of thinkers who have helped shape our world today, from anarchists to stoics, feminists to prophets, satirists to Zen Buddhists.

The story of Sojourner Truth, a self made woman who lived over 100 years, freed herself and her baby from bondage and went down in history as one of the most important black female freedom fighters.

This eBook edition of "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Sojourner Truth (c. 1797 – 1883) was an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. 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. Truth started dictating her memoirs to her friend Olive Gilbert, and in 1850 William Lloyd Garrison privately published her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave. Ain't I a Woman? (1851) is Truth's best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron. Contents: The Narrative of Sojourner Truth Her Birth and Parentage Accommodations Her Brothers and Sisters Her Religious Instruction The Auction Death of Mau-mau Bett Last Days of Bomefree Death of Bomefree Commencement of Isabella's Trials in Life Trials Continued Her Standing With Her New Master and Mistress Isabella's Marriage Isabella as a Mother Slaveholder's Promises Her Escape Illegal Sale of Her Son It Is Often Darkest Just Before Dawn Death of Mrs. Eliza Fowler Isabella's Religious Experience New Trials My Dear and Beloved Mother Finding a Brother and Sister Gleanings The Matthias Delusion Fasting The Cause of Her Leaving the City The Consequences of Refusing a Traveller a Night's Lodging Some of Her Views and Reasonings The Second Advent Doctrines Another Camp Meeting Her Last Interview With Her Master Certificates of Character Ain't I a Woman?

Straightforward, yet often poetic, accounts of the battle for freedom, these memoirs by three courageous black women vividly chronicle their struggles in the bonds of slavery, their rebellion against injustice, and their determination to attain equality.