The Hot Word
Daily Crossword
Word Games
Crossword Solver
Tools
Mobile
Android
iPad
iPhone
More
Apps...
Quotation by Sojourner Truth
More Quotes From
Sojourner Truth (16)Additional Sources
as quoted in Feminism: The Essential Historical Writings by Miriam Schnier (1972)as quoted in History of Woman Suffrage by Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1882)as quoted in History of Woman Suffrage by Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, and herself (1882)as quoted in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Frances W. Titus (1875)as quoted in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Frances W. Titus (added 1883; book originally copyrighted in 1875)
My name was Isabella; but when I left the house of bondage, I left everything behind. I wa'n't goin' to keep nothin' of Egypt on me, an' so I went to the Lord an' asked him to give me a new name. And 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. Afterward 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 Truth to the people.
Sojourner Truth (c. 1777–1883), African American slave; later an itinerant preacher and advocate of various social reforms including abolition, woman suffrage, and temperance. As quoted in The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, part 2: "Book of Life," by Frances W. Titus (1875).
Explaining her change of name. She was originally named Isabella, with the surname Van Wagener, after her last master, actually a humane person who offered her refuge and employment after she escaped from slavery. She had a flair for speaking and hymn-singing and, in 1851, left her home in Northampton, Massachusetts, on a lecture tour sponsored by abolitionists. She did not know her birthdate but did know that she was born in Ulster County, New York, and claimed to have been freed by that state's act of 1817 which liberated all slaves who were forty or older. Truth was illiterate, but several of her listeners recorded her words. In this case, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the famous abolitionist author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), was recalling Truth's conversation during a visit to the Stowe home. Stowe described the visit in "Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl," an article first published in the Atlantic Monthly (April 1863) and reprinted by Titus in this book.
Explaining her change of name. She was originally named Isabella, with the surname Van Wagener, after her last master, actually a humane person who offered her refuge and employment after she escaped from slavery. She had a flair for speaking and hymn-singing and, in 1851, left her home in Northampton, Massachusetts, on a lecture tour sponsored by abolitionists. She did not know her birthdate but did know that she was born in Ulster County, New York, and claimed to have been freed by that state's act of 1817 which liberated all slaves who were forty or older. Truth was illiterate, but several of her listeners recorded her words. In this case, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), the famous abolitionist author of Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), was recalling Truth's conversation during a visit to the Stowe home. Stowe described the visit in "Sojourner Truth, the Libyan Sibyl," an article first published in the Atlantic Monthly (April 1863) and reprinted by Titus in this book.
Surprise me with a
The Columbia World of Quotations © 1996, Columbia University Press.
Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, the following are prohibited: copying substantial portions or the entirety of the work in machine readable form, making multiple printouts thereof, and other uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws.
Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, the following are prohibited: copying substantial portions or the entirety of the work in machine readable form, making multiple printouts thereof, and other uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws.
