Sojourner Truth (c.1797–1883) was born Isabella Baumfree in Hurley, New York, the second youngest of ten or twelve children of a slave couple. Put up for auction in 1806, she worked as a slave until 1828 when she was freed under the New York State Anti-Slavery Act. She successfully fought to have one of her sons, sold illegally, returned to her, becoming the first African-American woman to take a white man to court and win.

In 1843, Isabella claimed that God told her to change her name to Sojourner Truth. Truth traveled extensively, speaking for the abolition of slavery and women's rights. Although she could neither read nor write, she became a famous preacher. By selling copies of her autobiography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave, she was able to support herself and buy a home in Battle Creek, Michigan. During the Civil War, she preached to make money for African-American soldiers serving in the Union army. She led an unsuccessful campaign to have land in the West set aside for freed African Americans, many of whom were poor and homeless after the war. Truth met many important figures of her day, including Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe.