"The Lord has made me a sign unto this nation, an' I go round a'testifyin' an' showin' on 'em their sins agin my people." The venerable Sojourner Truth









1986 - the U.S. Postal Service issued a stamp of the venerable Sojourner Truth.
Sojourner Truth, originally known as Isabella, was born a slave in New York in about 1798. In 1826 she escaped with the aid of Quaker abolitionists, and became a street-corner evangelist and the founder of a shelter for homeless women. When she was traveling, and someone asked her name, she said "Sojourner," meaning that she was a citizen of heaven, and a wanderer on earth. She then gave her surname as "Truth," on the grounds that God was her Father, and His name was Truth. She spoke at numerous church gatherings, both black and white, quoting the Bible extensively from memory, and speaking against slavery and for an improved legal status for women. The speech for which she is best known is called, "Ain't I a Woman?" It was delivered in response to a male speaker who had been arguing that the refusal of votes for women was grounded in a wish to shelter women from the harsh realities of political life. She replied, with great effect, that she was a woman, and that society had not sheltered her. She became known as "the Miriam of the Latter Exodus."