Date accessed. Chicago - Michals, Debra. Library of Congress. Sojourner Truth Memorial. Bernard, Jacqueline. New York: Feminist Press, Butler, Mary G. David, Linda and Erlene Stetson. Krass, Peter. Sojourner Truth. New York: Chelsea House, Mabee, Carleton and Susan Mabee Newhouse.
Sojourner Truth - Slave, Prophet, Legend. Ortiz, Victoria. Philadelphia: Lippincott, Painter, Nell Irvin, ed. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth. In , Dumont compelled Truth to marry an older enslaved person named Thomas.
The couple marriage resulted in a son, Peter, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Sophia. The state of New York, which had begun to negotiate the abolition of slavery in , emancipated all enslaved people on July 4, The shift did not come soon enough for Truth. After John Dumont reneged on a promise to emancipate Truth in late , she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter, Sophia. Her other daughter and son stayed behind. Shortly after her escape, Truth learned that her son Peter, then 5 years old, had been illegally sold to a man in Alabama.
She took the issue to court and eventually secured Peter's return from the South. The case was one of the first in which a Black woman successfully challenged a white man in a United States court. Truth's early years of freedom were marked by several strange hardships. Truth converted to Christianity and moved with her son Peter to New York City in , where she worked as a housekeeper for Christian evangelist Elijah Pierson. She then moved on to the home of Robert Matthews, also known as Prophet Matthias, for whom she also worked as a housekeeper.
Matthews had a growing reputation as a con man and a cult leader. Shortly after Truth changed households, Elijah Pierson died. Robert Matthews was accused of poisoning Pierson in order to benefit from his personal fortune, and the Folgers, a couple who were members of his cult, attempted to implicate Truth in the crime.
In the absence of adequate evidence, Matthews was acquitted. Because he had become a favorite subject of the penny press, he decided to move west. In , Truth brought a slander suit against the Folgers and won. After Truth's successful rescue of her son, Peter, from slavery in Alabama, mother and son stayed together until At that time, Peter took a job on a whaling ship called the Zone of Nantucket.
Truth received three letters from her son between and When the ship returned to port in , however, Peter was not on board. Truth never heard from him again. On June 1, , Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth and devoted her life to Methodism and the abolition of slavery.
As part of this work, she met President Ulysses S. Grant in the White House. She went to the polls on Election Day to vote but was turned away.
Although her health was in its decline, she continued to travel and speak. She died in her Battle Creek home on November 26, at age In her life, she tirelessly advocated for the rights of African Americans, women, and for numerous reform causes including prison reform and against capital punishment. She is memorialized in countless art works, murals, and statues. In , Truth became the first Black woman memorialized with a bust in the U.
Therefore, her words survive as written by others. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others. Explore This Park. Library of Congress. Advocate for the rights of women and African Americans; abolitionist; author; speaker. Info For Search. Office Directory. Ways to Give. Give Now. Rapier Jesse Jackson Booker T.
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