Sojourner Truth Character Analysis

Sojourner Truth was an American abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, around 1797, Truth (born Isabella Baumfree) later made her way to freedom in 1826 after an abolitionist family bought her and her infant daughter out of slavery. In 1843, she adopted the name Sojourner Truth for the first time and began traveling the United States, giving speeches about the urgency of the abolition and women’s rights movement. There was some crossover between the two movements—but many white first-wave feminists did not feel too concerned with the issue of abolition. In her landmark speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” Truth pointed out the racism that existed within the women’s rights movement of her day; the hypocrisy of men who sought to keep women out of the public sphere; and the corruption of the Christian Church, which often used harmful rhetoric to justify the mistreatment and exclusion of women of all races. Truth’s speech, though brief, became famous for its raw emotionality and its critique of the Church. While historians generally agree that the version of the speech that is best-known today was heavily edited by the white feminist Frances Gage, Truth’s speech has nonetheless become a vital piece of feminist history and one of the most important pieces of rhetoric from the first wave of feminism in the United States. By invoking poignant symbols and imagery (such as the fabled “thirteen children” she bore while enslaved, a fact that historians have since debunked and now attribute to Gage’s flawed transcript of the speech), Truth communicates the profound injustices that American women were facing. Truth called attention to the need for an intersectional feminism (though she did not use those words) that recognized the equality of women of all races and demanded abolition, suffrage, and reparations for enslaved Black women.