http://equalityarchive.com/history/sojourner-truth/
Leadership Lessons
from the Life of
Sojourner Truth
S
Eturuvie Erebor
ojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree.
She was an African American born into slavery
around 1797. Her parents were slaves, and
most of their children were cruelly sold from
them leaving only Isabella and her younger
brother Peter. When she was about nine years
old, her mother had spoken to her about God,
telling her that he lived in the sky and that she could always
turn to him for help when she was beaten or maltreated and
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DOZ Magazine January 2018
that he would hear her and
help her. Sojourner was sold
about four times as a slave,
and on one occasion, she was
sold with a flock of sheep for
a hundred dollars. Sometime
in 1824 things turned for the
better for her. A law was passed
that slaves born before July 4th,
1799, were to be freed. But there
was a problem; John Dumont
who at the time was her owner
tried to keep her back in slavery
for another year stating that her
actual age was unknown, and
she had not worked the past
year due to a hand injury and so
would have to stay on another
year. Sojourner took her
freedom. She simply walked out
of the Dumont farm in broad
daylight with her daughter. She
was a mother of five children
and apart from the last, the
others had been sold away from
her. When she became free, she
continued to visit them at their
different homes as they could
not be free themselves until
they turned 21. Unfortunately,
one of her children, Peter, had
been sold outside the state, and
she went to court to fight for
his freedom. She was a very
determined woman. She said,
I will have my child again, and
she did. He was eventually
returned to her. She was one
of the first black women to
challenge a white man in court
and win. When She was about
46, she was certain God was
calling her to be a travelling
preacher and, so she set out and
began to speak about the evils