Sojourner Truth
US History/Napp
Name: _________________
At a Glance:
“From the time Sojourner Truth assumed her name, the emancipated woman who had
been enslaved became a noted preacher and lecturer. A spellbinding orator, she crusaded
against slavery and promoted the equality of men and women. Unlike many abolitionists of
her day, Sojourner Truth advocated nonviolence as the way to accomplish change. She
was also committed to achieving women’s rights.
1- Who was Sojourner Truth?
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2- What did Sojourner Truth crusade against?
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3- What did Sojourner Truth promote?
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4- How did Sojourner Truth differ from other abolitionists?
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------‘Children, I talk to God and God talks to me!’ With these words Sojourner Truth would
begin electrifying talks on the evils of slavery and the abuse of women. An AfricanAmerican woman who would experience both evils in her life, Sojourner Truth was born
an enslaved person in New York. Named Isabella by her parents, she acquired several
surnames because she was sold to different slaveholders during her youth.
Isabella was emancipated in 1827, and worked as a house servant in New York from 1829
to 1843. At that time, rather than using the names of her previous slaveholders, she
changed her name to Sojourner Truth and began speaking at revival meetings. The
movement for abolition of slavery was beginning to gain momentum in the North. As her
reputation as an orator spread, huge crowds assembled to hear Sojourner Truth’s
demands for freedom for African Americans and political rights for women.
She joined forces with noted abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick
Douglass, and like them, often faced attempts by mobs to silence her message. Unlike
Douglass, with whom she often shared a podium, Sojourner Truth always counseled
nonviolence in putting an end to slavery.
Concentrating her lecturing activities in the eastern states and throughout the Midwest,
she supported herself through the sales of her autobiography, The Narrative of Sojourner
Truth. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, she used money raised from her lectures
and the sale of her life story to buy gifts for soldiers and to help escaped enslaved persons
find jobs, food, clothing, and shelter. When African American men finally were allowed to
join the Union army, she gathered supplies for their regiments, and in 1864, President
Lincoln received her at the White House. The Great Emancipator appointed her counselor
to free African Americans residing in the nation’s capital.
While she was in Washington, D.C., Sojourner Truth became the first African American
woman to test the legality of segregation on city streetcars. She later won a lawsuit that
resulted in ending the policy of separating riders on the basis of race in the capital.
Although nearly 70 years old at the conclusion of the Civil War, Sojourner Truth barely
slowed her active pace. She went into the defeated South to personally investigate
conditions there, especially the treatment of newly emancipated enslaved persons. She
later worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau in the South to help people formerly held as
slaves adjust to life after bondage. While engaged in these demanding activities, she also
continued her lecturing on racial justice and women’s rights.”
~ American Biography [Glencoe]
1- Why did Sojourner Truth assume her new name?
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2- How was Truth similar to and different from abolitionists William Lloyd Garrison
and Frederick Douglass?
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3- Enumerate Sojourner Truth’s work on behalf of both enslaved and emancipated
African Americans.
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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Women’s Rights
Sojourner Truth
[Born a slave around 1797, and later set free, Sojourner Truth became a traveling religious
preacher and abolitionist. Having discovered the women’s rights movement, she attended
the Ohio Women’s Convention in 1851. Participants feared that Sojourner Truth would
introduce unpopular abolitionist ideas, but after her speech, they applauded wildly.]
GUIDED READING
As you read, consider the following questions:
• What is Sojourner Truth’s argument?
• “Ain’t I a woman” became an important phrase for African American feminists in this
century. Why do you think that it did?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think
that ’twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights,
the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over
ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or
over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at
my arm. I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head
me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could
get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and
seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none
but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [Intellect, someone
whispers.] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or Negro's rights? If
my cup won’t hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me
have my little half-measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men,
‘cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ
come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all
alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again!
And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them. Obliged to you for hearing me,
and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~ McGraw-Hill
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The Questions:
• What is Sojourner Truth’s argument?
• “Ain’t I a woman” became an important phrase for African American feminists in this
century. Why do you think that it did?
1) The abolitionist movement, the women’s suffrage movement, and the 1960’s civil rights
movement are all examples of reform efforts that
1. succeeded without causing major controversy
2. developed significant popular support
3. achieved their goals without government action
4. failed to affect the nation as a whole
2) Sectional differences developed in the United States largely because
1. the Federal Government adopted a policy of neutrality
2. economic conditions and interests in each region varied
3. only northerners were represented at the Constitutional Convention
4. early Presidents favored urban areas over rural areas
3) Early in his Presidency, Abraham Lincoln declared that his primary goal as President
was to
1. enforce the Emancipation Proclamation
2. preserve the Union
3. end slavery throughout the entire country
4. encourage sectionalism
4) Before the Civil War, slavery expanded in the South rather than in the North because
1. the Constitution contained a clause that outlawed the importation of slaves into the
Northern states
2. Congress passed a law forbidding slavery in the North
3. Northern states passed affirmative action legislation
4. geographic conditions in the South encouraged the development of large plantations
5) "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure
permanently half slave and half free.” -Abraham Lincoln, 1858
According to this quotation, Abraham Lincoln believed that
1. slavery was immoral and should be abolished immediately
2. sectional differences threatened to destroy the Union
3. the Southern states should be allowed to secede
4. to save the nation, the North should compromise with the South on slavery
6) In the 1850s, why did many runaway slaves go to Canada?
1. They feared being drafted into the Northern army.
2. The Fugitive Slave Act kept them at risk in the United States.
3. More factory jobs were available in Canada.
4. Northern abolitionists refused to help fugitive slaves.
7) The Civil War affected the northern economy by
1. causing a severe depression
2. increasing unemployment rates
3. decreasing demand for agricultural products
4. stimulating industrialization
8) The election results shown on this map most clearly reflect the influence of
1.
2.
3.
4.
nationalist motives
sectional differences
political stability
ethnic conflicts
9) “Although important strides were made, Reconstruction failed to provide lasting
guarantees of the civil rights of the freedmen.”
Which evidence best supports this statement?
1. passage of Jim Crow laws in the latter part of the 19th century
2. ratification of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments
3. refusal of Southern States to allow sharecropping
4. passage of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866
10) Which statement is best supported by the data in the table?
1. The Confederate troops lost the Civil War as a result of their higher numbers of
injuries and fatalities.
2. The Union army had better generals during the Civil War.
3. The Civil War had more casualties than any other war.
4. More soldiers died from disease than from wounds.
11) Prior to the Civil War, abolitionists reacted to the situation described in the poster by
1.
2.
3.
4.
supporting the Underground Railroad
opposing the Emancipation Proclamation
banning freed slaves from Northern states
proposing a stricter fugitive slave law