Sojourner Truth

Jayla (Student)

Sojourner Truth (Isabella Van Wagener) was born in 1797 in Ulster county, New York, United States.  She died November 26, 1883 in Battle Creek, Michigan, U.S.  Her parents were Elizabeth Baumfree & James Baumfree.

Sojourner was the daughter of enslaved African people and spent her childhood as an abused chattel of several masters.  Chattel is when a person is treated like an object.  In 1827, she found safety with the quaker Isaac Van Wagener, who set her free.  Later in 1843 she decided to go on with the rest of her life with the name Sojourner Truth.  After that, in the early 1850s, she joined the women’s right movement (for the right to vote).

At the start of the American Civil War, she gathered supplies for black volunteer regiments and in 1864 went to Washington, D.C. where she helped integrate streetcars and later visited President Abraham Lincoln at the White House.

In 1875 she retired to her home in Battle Creek, where she stayed until she passed away.