Nov. 26, 1883
Abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth (whose original name was Isabella Baumfree) died in Battle Creek, Michigan.
Freed from slavery, she wandered the country, calling for an end to the institution. “Ain’t I a woman?” she told a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio. “I have borne 13 children and seen most all sold off to slavery and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me. And ain’t I a woman?”
A century after her death, she was elected to the Women’s Hall of Fame. A statue of her can be found in Battle Creek, less than a mile from the nation’s largest monument to the Underground Railroad.
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