Sojourner Truth was born into slavery—but God told her she was meant to be free. In 1826 she walked off her master’s farm and stole herself into freedom, taking only her infant child and leaving 4 others behind.
Conversation
Eventually she undertook an itinerant ministry “traveling up and down the land” delivering God’s judgment against slavery, and for women’s rights. She continued to struggle for freedom and equality until the day she died on November 26, 1883, at the age of eighty-six.
She was acclaimed as one of the most influential women of her day: an illiterate black woman, a political activist without office, a preacher without credentials save for her penetrating and holistic vision of God’s justice. On her deathbed: “I’m going home like a shooting star.”
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