The Narrative of Sojourner Truth

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?