Sojourner Truth Lesson

SOJOURNER TRUTH FACTS 1. Sojourner Truth was six feet tall. 2. During a speech in 1858, when someone accused her of being a man, she opened her blouse to prove she wasn't one. 3. Truth met with Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant. 4. The U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp in her honor in 1986. 5. NASA named a robotic rover after her.

• Sojourner Truth was a famous African American slave, abolitionist, and women's rights activist.
• She was named Isabella Baumfree, but she changed her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843 when she was about 46 years old.
• Truth was born into slavery in New York around 1797.
• Her parents, her twelve siblings, and her five children were also born slaves.
• Truth was bought and sold four times during her life. She was beaten and raped when she was a young slave.
• In 1826 she escaped from her master with her infant daughter. She left her other four children behind.
• A Quaker family helped her. They let her and her daughter live with them.
• Truth gained her freedom when the New York State Emancipation Act was passed in 1827.
• She became a Christian and traveled around the country to help with abolitionist causes and to promote women's rights.
• Truth delivered a famous speech called "Ain't I a Woman" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851.
• She spoke to many audiences about slavery, prison reform, capital punishment, and women's rights.
• Truth did more than just speak; she also recruited African American soldiers for the Union Army during the Civil War, tried to get land grants for former slaves, and tried to vote in a presidential election.
• Sojourner Truth died on November 26, 1883, in Battle Creek, Michigan.