Powerful African American icons who fought for women’s rights and championed the 19th Amendment

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Sojourner Truth was an African-American abolitionist who was a lifelong defender of gender equality. Though she was born into slavery, Truth escaped to freedom with her young daughter at the age of 29.

In 1828, she became the first black woman to win a custody court battle against a white man, and was able to recover her son from slavery. At the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention of 1851, Truth delivered a speech titled “Ain’t I a Woman?” that stirred hearts and became widely told during the Civil War era.

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Truth was fearless in her fight for racial equality. She recruited black troops for the Union Army and attempted to secure land grants for former slaves after abolition. In the 1860s, she often rode streetcars in Washington D.C. to promote desegregation and publicly protest racism.