Sojourner Truth Couldn't Read a WORD, Then Gave One of History's Great Speeches

Born enslaved and never taught to read, she became one of the most powerful voices in America.

She was born Isabella, property of a New York family, and spoke only Dutch as a girl.

She was sold away from her parents as a child, passed between owners like livestock.

One owner had promised her freedom, then broke his word, so she walked away with her baby.

When that same man illegally sold her young son to Alabama, she did the unthinkable.

She took him to court, and became the first Black woman to win such a case against a white man.

She renamed herself Sojourner Truth and set out to preach freedom across the country.

At a women's convention in 1851, she rose and spoke without a single note.

Her words that day became one of the most famous speeches in American history.

A woman who never read a page had spoken truth the whole nation would remember.

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