workingclasshistory:

On this day, 26 November 1883, the formerly enslaved woman and pioneering feminist, Black emancipationist and poet Sojourner Truth died in Michigan aged 86. She was born into slavery in a Dutch-speaking community in New York, and later gave birth to five children. She escaped in 1827, and with the support of an abolitionist family, successfully sued for the return of one of her sons who had been illegally sold in Alabama. After moving to New York City she became a charismatic preacher, helping enslaved people escape and advocating for abolitionism, and for women’s rights, including women’s suffrage. During the civil war Truth assisted the Union side, and after the war she helped people formerly enslaved in the South build new lives, often as wage workers. Truth remained active until the end of her long life, spending time in her later years campaigning for land redistribution to formally enslaved people – which was famously promised as “40 acres and a mule”, but was never delivered. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1275243799327434/?type=3