Sojourner Truth - Wednesday's Woman of the Week!

February is Black History Month; what a fantastic opportunity for the League to highlight some truly revolutionary African American Suffragists!

Sojourner Truth, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division (LC-USZ62-119343)

Although white women were able to vote freely after 1920, most African American women still faced great adversity when they tried to cast their ballot at the polls. These women were often intimidated by poll workers, threatened by other voters, and sometimes even viciously attacked. African American women fought side by side with white women for the right to vote and for equality among men.

Today we highlight Sojourner Truth. Truth was an activist and preacher.  Truth was born into slavery in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826. Before she fought for the right to vote she was extremely active in the abolition movement. After the Civil War Sojourner fought to see that African American men who served in the war were awarded land in the west. 

An albumen silver print from approximately 1870 by Randall Studios

Truth is best known for her speech she delivered in 1815 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title "Ain't I a Woman?"

For more on Sojourner Truth visit The National Women's History Museum here.