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UNIT 9: Growing Nation
UNIT 9: Growing Nation
Lesson: Sojourner Truth
Lesson: Sojourner Truth
8.42 Analyze the development of the women’s suffrage movement, including the Seneca Falls Convention, and the ideals of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth.
8.42 Analyze the development of the women’s suffrage movement, including the Seneca Falls Convention, and the ideals of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner Truth
Belle Baumfree was born in 1797. She was born into slavery in New York. Two years after she was born, in 1799, the state of New York abolished slavery, but slaves would not be emancipated until 1827. This meant that when Belle was 30 years old, she would finally be free. As a newly freed slave, Belle didn’t have anywhere to go, but a Christian family took her and her young daughter in, this experience changed her life. She decided to become a Christian too and changed her name to Sojourner Truth.
She said she was changing her name because God had called her to go out and preach the truth to the people. She delivered her most well known speech in 1851, it was called “Ain’t I a Woman.” In the speech she demanded equal rights for all women and blacks.
“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.”
Sojourner Truth, "Ain't I a Woman?" (1851)
During the Civil War, she helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. After the war, she unsuccessfully lobbied for the US government to give African Americans reparations, commonly known as “forty acres and a mule.” Sojourner Truth was known as an early leader of the abolitionist movement and the women’s suffrage movement. She became a nationally known advocate for equality and justice. She is remembered today for speaking out to help African Americans and women gain equal rights.
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