Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was born in 1797 in the 19th century of hard working slave people. Truth had the ability to go on speaking, year after year for thirty of them. She became a strong force in several American reform movements. From the late 1840's through 1870's, she traveled the American land denouncing slavery and slavers, advocating women's rights, women's suffrage and temperance.

When Sojourner was born, the American truth as well as the American South, was land of bondage. My hero, Sojourner Truth, was born in a village in Hurley, in Ulster County, New York. Sojourner's parents were James and Elizabeth, the slaves of Colonel Johannes Hareden Bergh, a Revolutionary War colonel who died long aftr Truth's birth.

While Sojourner's parents were slaves, they were known as Elizabeth Mau Mau ("Mama") in Ducth. Her father had lost two wives before Betsy. Sojourner was the youngest of James and Betsy's ten or twelve children, but as a child she had only one new sibling. One of Sojourner's childhood memories is that she remembers her parents grieving over their children who had been sold.

Freedom represented a completed novelty to Sojourner. She had been born a slave of slaves. Sojourner got injured and lost some of her fingers, but she was an extraordinarily efficient worker in the fields. It was said that she could do a day's work faster than any man. She lost one of her fingers in an accident and when her Master, Dumont, did not keep his promise to free her a year before the state of New York was going to abolish slavery, Sojourner decided to leave.

She left slavery when she thought time was right. As you see, Sojourner Truth is my description of a hero. She is so much like Harriet Tubman. I say that because she and Harriet worked hard to get free. My Hero made a difference to me by not letting things get to her. It relates to "I know why the Caged Bird Sings," in that both Maya and Sojourner had a lot of obstacles and courage.