A Life Lived with God’s Purpose
Sojourner Truth
Born a slave, Isabella Bomfree was born in 1797 in New York state. In 1826, she and her baby daughter escaped, but her other children either did not survive or were sold into slavery. She went on be the first black woman to sue for the return of her son, Peter, illegally sold into slavery, and win. She was an outspoken evangelist, American abolitionist, civil and women’s rights activist. In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth.
“The Lord gave me ‘Sojourner,’ because I was to travel up an’ down the land, showin’ the people their sins an’ bein’ a sign unto them. Afterwards, I told the Lord I wanted another name ’cause everybody else had two names, and the Lord gave me ‘Truth,’ because I was to declare the truth to people.”
And she more than lived up to her name speaking to quite possibly hundreds of crowds in her lifetime. In 1851 at a Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, she delivered what is quite possibly her most memorable and moving speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” Although, it seems she never actually spoke the title phrase. Sadly, her speech was erroneously rewritten in the 1860s to reflect a stereotypical southern slave dialect, and the phrase was penned by that author. She actually spoke with a Dutch accent reflecting her upbringing in upstate New York. Here is her speech more closely recorded to what she may have said:
I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart – why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, – for we can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble. I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.
During the Civil War, she worked in Washington DC, recruiting Union soldiers and at the National Freedman’s Relief Association. President Lincoln recognized her tireless efforts and even invited her to the White House. She never wavered from her God assigned purpose to travel up and down the land delivering the Truth and fighting for reforms with the love of Jesus as the foundation. After such a harsh physical life, her body was wearing out, but her spirit never dimmed. Nearly completely blind and deaf and living with a great deal of pain, she celebrated her Heavenly homecoming like a shooting star in November of 1883.
