# Sojourner Truth Born Isabella Baumfree into slavery in Ulster County, New York, around 1797, Sojourner Truth became one of the most powerful voices in American history for abolition and women's rights. After escaping slavery in 1826, she reinvented herself as an itinerant preacher and activist, taking the name "Sojourner Truth" in 1843 to reflect her mission of traveling the country and speaking God's truth. ## "Ain't I a Woman?" Truth's most famous speech, delivered at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, demolished the intersection of racial and gender prejudice with devastating rhetorical force. Though the exact wording is debated by historians — the most widely known version was transcribed by Frances Dana Barker Gage twelve years after the fact — the speech's core argument remains searing: that the exclusion of Black women from both abolitionist and feminist movements exposed the hypocrisy at the heart of both. ## Activism and Influence Truth was a tireless advocate who operated at the intersection of multiple liberation movements simultaneously — a radical position even among reformers of her era. She recruited Black troops for the Union Army during the [[American Civil War]], fought for land grants for formerly enslaved people, and continued advocating for women's suffrage and prison reform into her later years. Her approach combined personal testimony, religious conviction, and cutting wit. At a time when Black women were systematically excluded from public discourse, Truth seized the platform through sheer moral authority and rhetorical brilliance. ## Legacy and Relevance to the Right-Wing KB Truth's legacy sits at the exact intersection of issues the modern right-wing ecosystem seeks to roll back: racial justice, gender equality, and the recognition of intersecting forms of oppression. The concept of "intersectionality" — now a primary target of right-wing "anti-woke" campaigns — is essentially what Truth was articulating 170 years before [[Kimberlé Crenshaw]] gave it a name. Her story is also frequently targeted in curriculum restriction efforts. Laws banning "divisive concepts" in schools often function to prevent teaching the kind of history Truth embodied — the messy, painful, uncomfortable truth about American inequality. --- ## See Also - [[Activists]] - [[Ida B. Wells]]