The Philosopher
Sojourner Truth
The face
The background
- Branchs:
- Abolitionism, Women's rights, Alcohol temperance, Civil rights
The synopsis
Sojourner Truth (born Isabella Bomefree; c. 1797 – November 26, 1883) was an American abolitionist and activist for African-American civil rights, women's rights, and alcohol temperance. Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, 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. Bomefree gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 after she became convinced that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside "testifying to the hope that was in her." Her best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, in 1851, at the Ohio Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title "Ain't I a Woman?", a variation of the original speech that was published in 1863. During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit Black men into the Union army; after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for formerly enslaved people. She continued to fight on behalf of women and African Americans until her death.
The works
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave
The quotes
Truth is powerful and it prevails.
The rich rob the poor, and the poor rob one another.
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.
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.
It is written that there shall be a separation, and the sheep shall be separated from the goats. The other preachers have the sheep; I have the goats. And I have a few sheep among my goats, but they are very ragged.
Religion without humanity is very poor human stuff.
The Lord only knows how many times I let my children go hungry rather than take secretly the bread I liked not to ask for.
When I got religion, I found some work to do to benefit somebody.
When I preaches, I has just one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from this one. My text is, 'When I found Jesus.'
The slaveholders are terrible for promising to give you this or that, or such and such a privilege, if you will do thus and so, and when the time of fulfillment comes, and one claims the promise, they, forsooth, recollect nothing of the kind; and you are, like as not, taunted with being a liar.
I know and do what is right better than many big men who read.
We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much.
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.
I am not going to die, I'm going home like a shooting star.
God will take care of the poor trampled slave, but where will the slaveholder be when eternity begins?
I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me. And aren't I a woman?
Good man! Genuine gentleman! God bless George Thompson, the great-hearted friend of my race.
If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it.
Though it seems curious, I do not remember ever asking for anything but what I got it. And I always received it as an answer to my prayers.
Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.
It is the mind that makes the body.
I tell you I can't read a book, but I can read de people.
There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before.
If the Lord comes and burns - as you say he will - I am not going away; I am going to stay here and stand the fire, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! And Jesus will walk with me through the fire and keep me from harm.
Oh God, you know I have no money, but you can make the people do for me, and you must make the people do for me.