Olive Gilbert

Narrative of Sojourner Truth Olive Gilbert

A symbol of the strength of African-American women, and a champion of the rights of all women, Sojourner Truth was an illiterate former slave in New York State who transformed herself into a vastly powerful orator. Dictating to a neighbor, she began her celebrated life story, in which she chronicles her youth, her 1827 emancipation, and her religious experiences, one year after the extremely successful publication in 1846 of Frederick Douglass' narrative. Truth's magnetism as an abolitionist speaker brought her fame in her own time, and her narrative gives readers a vivid picture of nineteenth-century life in the north, where blacks, enslaved or free, lived in relative isolation from one another. This volume includes the complete Narrative of Sojourner of Truth plus her speeches; Ain't I a Woman? and Keeping the Thing Going While Things Are Stirring