Freed slave and abolitionist. She became famous for her extemporaneous speech, Ain't I a Woman, delivered in Akron, Ohio in 1851. In 1828, she became the first Black woman to successfully launch a lawsuit against a former slave owner to secure custody of her son. In 1843, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth after answer a religious call to preach around the country in support of abolishing slavery and advancing women's rights. During the Civil War, she helped recruit Black people to the Union Army. In 1850, she wrote and published her memoirs, called The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: a Northern Slave. She took her infant daughter and escaped slavery in 1826, fleeing the home of her owner and taking refuge with a family in New Paltz, New York.
