Sojourner Truth

Born Isabella Baumfree around 1797 in Ulster County, New York, she was enslaved from birth and sold away from her parents at age nine — sold, along with a flock of sheep, for one hundred dollars. She was sold twice more before escaping to freedom in 1826. In 1843, she took the name Sojourner Truth, believing she was called to travel the country testifying to what she'd witnessed and lived. She joined the Northampton Association, a Massachusetts community connected to the Underground Railroad, where she crossed paths with William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass.

In 1850, she began dictating her memoirs — published as The Narrative of Sojourner Truth — to her friend Olive Gilbert. The following year, at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, she delivered the speech now remembered as “Ain't I a Woman?”, one of the era's most enduring abolitionist and women's rights addresses. She continued speaking for Black and women's rights through and after the Civil War, and died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.

Key contributions

• Escaped slavery in 1826 and became an itinerant preacher and abolitionist speaker.
• Dictated her life story into The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), a foundational autobiographical source.
• Delivered the landmark 1851 “Ain't I a Woman?” speech at the Akron Women's Rights Convention.
• Continued advocating for the rights of African Americans and women through the Civil War era.

Context

Truth's early life took place in a Dutch-speaking enslaved household in New York, a reminder that Northern slavery, though less discussed than its Southern counterpart, shaped her entire childhood. Her later career unfolded at the intersection of two reform movements — abolition and women's suffrage — that didn't always make room for a formerly enslaved Black woman's voice.

In their spirit: Say the true thing, even when the room isn't ready for it.

About this set

Truth's card is one of six in Set 1A — First Flame Daughters, part of the Lineage: Origin Fire digital postcard collection. First Flame Daughters gathers women whose public courage and leadership lit the way for the movements that followed.

Shop the First Flame Daughters set or get the Complete Collection (all 12 cards).

Note: sources differ on some biographical particulars from Truth's life; exact dates are not always firmly documented and various accounts of her life have circulated with differing details.

Sources: National Park Service — Sojourner Truth biography, “Ain't I A Woman?”; Library of Congress — Sojourner Truth: A Resource Guide.