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 Faces of Freedom> Sojourner Truth
Originally named Isabella, Truth was born into slavery in New York. Like many other slaves, she never learned how to read or write. Truth escaped to freedom in late 1826 and in 1827 the state of New York emancipated slaves born after 1799. In 1843, she officially adopted the name Sojourner Truth and announced that she would travel as a preacher and advocate for human rights issues. Truth preached that slavery was inconsistent with Christianity, petitioned the court to release her illegally enslaved son, and advocated that Congress give western lands to freed slaves. At the start of the Civil War, Truth fought for blacks to be included in the Union Army. Her grandson, James Caldwell, fought for the Massachusetts Volunteer 54th Regiment, the first African-American regiment commissioned by the Union Army. Truth also fought for women’s rights and suffrage, temperance, prison reform and ending the death penalty. One of her most famous speeches, “Ain’t I A Woman” was given at a women’s rights convention in Ohio in 1851. In her speech she argued that women deserve equal rights to men. This is an excerpt from her speech: “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 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?” Human trafficking: Modern day slavery Although slavery as a legalized institution ended shortly after the Civil War, illegal human trafficking still takes place in this country and around the world. Human trafficking is holding a person in compelled service, whether it is by force or deception for the purpose of exploitation. An estimated 12.3 million adults and children were held in forced labor, bonded labor, and forced prostitution worldwide, according to the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report, released by the U.S. Department of State. Victims of forced labor, also known as involuntary servitude, are forced to work in a variety of environments such as servants in homes or at construction sites. These victims are often denied payment for their labor and threatened with violence. Immigrant and migrant workers can fall victim to bonded labor, where human traffickers illegally recruit and exploit them for work claiming the victims are paying off a debt they owe to the traffickers for employment. Human trafficking victims are often physically and sexually abused by their captors and threatened with harm if they try to escape. The United Nations adopted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in 2000. Also known as the Palermo Protocol, it calls on the international community to criminalize human trafficking of all forms and asks governments to work on trafficking prevention, criminal prosecution and victim protection initiatives. back to Faces of Freedom |
Sojourner Truth biography PBS.org Sojourner Truth C-Span American writers Sojourner Truth Institute Sojourner Truth Institute Sojourner Truth, online resources Library of Congress Lesson plan: Slavery in the United States: Primary Sources and the Historical Record Library of Congress 2010 Human Trafficking Report U.S. State Department |
