They're bold. They're fearless. They're adventurous. They have a faith that can move mountains. They're women of courage. This series of easy-read biographies celebrates the lives of women who lived lives committed to changing the world for better. What set them apart? The willingness to live courageously for Christ, even in the midst of impossible situations. In Sojourner Truth, you will meet the tall, powerful former slave and abolitionist whose biblically-based call for equality—for both African Americans and women—secured her a place in American history. Wherever she appeared, the wise words and electrifying presence of Sojourner Truth brought audiences to their feet. The lengthy shadow cast by her near-six-foot frame and the challenge to injustice issued by her stinging speeches have secured her a place in American history—a place as a woman of courage. Get inspired by her story, celebrate her legacy, and learn that God can use each of us for mighty things. . .if we have courage.

'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.

“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.

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 1797, Sojourner Truth eventually gained her freedom and travelled the nation crusading against slavery and promoting civil liberties, women's rights, prison reform, and better working conditions. In JOURNEY TOWARD FREEDOM, Bernard gives vivid expression to the great courage, wit, and common sense that made Sojourner Truth an inspirational champion for change in the United States. "Quietly factual when it suits her story, but lyrical when the demand arises, Jacqueline Bernard has succeeded on nearly every account." -- New York Times.

Shows how the hardships of slavery, particularly the loss of her family, caused Isabella Baumfree to walk towards freedom, to re-invent herself as Sojourner Truth, and to continue walking to abolish slavery and for other reforms.

This fascinating biography tells the story of nineteenth-century America through the life of one of its most charismatic and influential characters: Sojourner Truth. In an in-depth account of this amazing activist, Margaret Washington unravels Sojourner Truth's world within the broader panorama of African American slavery and the nation's most significant reform era. Born into bondage among the Hudson Valley Dutch in Ulster County, New York, Isabella was sold several times, married, and bore five children before fleeing in 1826 with her infant daughter one year before New York slavery was abolished. In 1829, she moved to New York City, where she worked as a domestic, preached, joined a religious commune, and then in 1843 had an epiphany. Changing her name to Sojourner Truth, she began traveling the country as a champion of the downtrodden and a spokeswoman for equality by promoting Christianity, abolitionism, and women's rights. Gifted in verbal eloquence, wit, and biblical knowledge, Sojourner Truth possessed an earthy, imaginative, homespun personality that won her many friends and admirers and made her one of the most popular and quoted reformers of her times. Washington's biography of this remarkable figure considers many facets of Sojourner Truth's life to explain how she became one of the greatest activists in American history, including her African and Dutch religious heritage; her experiences of slavery within contexts of labor, domesticity, and patriarchy; and her profoundly personal sense of justice and intuitive integrity. Organized chronologically into three distinct eras of Truth's life, Sojourner Truth's America examines the complex dynamics of her times, beginning with the transnational contours of her spirituality and early life as Isabella and her embroilments in legal controversy. Truth's awakening during nineteenth-century America's progressive surge then propelled her ascendancy as a rousing preacher and political orator despite her inability to read and write. Throughout the book, Washington explores Truth's passionate commitment to family and community, including her vision for a beloved community that extended beyond race, gender, and socioeconomic condition and embraced a common humanity. For Sojourner Truth, the significant model for such communalism was a primitive, prophetic Christianity. Illustrated with dozens of images of Truth and her contemporaries, Sojourner Truth's America draws a delicate and compelling balance between Sojourner Truth's personal motivations and the influences of her historical context. Washington provides important insights into the turbulent cultural and political climate of the age while also separating the many myths from the facts concerning this legendary American figure.