Notecard - Sojourner Truth

Photographer unknown, Hand Colored by Karen Kerney SCW©1998

On Back of Card:
"If we want to lead the people, we must not get out of their sight."

"Life is a hard battle anyway, and if we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier." The New York World, May 13, 1867.

Sojourner Truth was a powerful advocate of abolition, temperance, and woman's rights. Known for her effective and unusual preaching style, from the 1840's through the late 1870's she traveled widely throughout the Northern states, her personal magnetism drawing large crowds wherever she appeared.
She is best known today for the "Ain't I A Woman" speech she was reported to have made at the Ohio Woman's Rights Convention held in Akron in 1851. In fact, Marius Robinson's official recording of her remarks does not contain the well-known phrase even once. Her actual remarks are excerpted on SCW's "I Am A Woman's Rights" poster and postcard.
Truth was born into slavery in New York State around 1797, and died at her home in Battle Creek, MI in 1883.

Quotation on front of notecard from The New York Herald, May 11, 1867.
Thanks to Carleton Mabee, author of Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend, for assistance.