-
Birth and Early Life
Isabella Bomfree was born into slavery in Ulster County, New York in 1797. Over the next 30 years, she was bought and sold four times and subjected to unrelenting physical labor and severe punishments.
Growing up in slavery, without freedom or rights for the first thirty years of her life, helped mold Truth into an advocate for equality. Her harsh background created the resilient, perseverant woman that has gone down in history as one of the greatest activists in U.S. history. -
Motherhood
In 1815, when Isabella was only a teenager, she married a fellow slave named Thomas and together they had a total of five children.
I believe that becoming a mother is what lit the fire in Sojourner's heart and soul. Having children boosted her ambition, passion, drive and desire for quality change. She did not want her children to grow up in the same world she did, a world with no rights or equality for women, let alone enslaved women. -
Runaway Slave
A year before New York emancipated slaves, Isabella ran away with her youngest daughter to a nearby abolitionist family. That family bought her freedom and helped Bomfree successfully sue a white man who had illegally sold her son to Alabama. Escaping slavery revealed Sojourner’s resourcefulness, ingenuity, and grit. There was a lot of work to be done if Truth wanted all of her children to have a better life and running to freedom was the first step in that direction. -
Rebirth
In 1843, at the age of 46, Isabella Bomfree decided to change her name to Sojourner Truth. Isabella Bomfree's name change to Sojourner Truth marked the finalizing act of her developmental phase as an advocate. This event symbolically displays her fully transitioning into a beacon of truth and change. She fought the good fight for the rest of her life, until her death in 1883, for women’s rights, abolitionism and gender equality. -
Works Cited
D. M. (2015). Sojourner Truth. Retrieved September 12, 2020, from
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/sojourner-truth
