This is particularly remarkable because of the fact that Sojourner Truth (a name she called herself later) was a slave, born at the end of the 18th c. In the beginning she was not able to read or write.
After having escaped slavery Sojourner Truth became the very first women who not only fought against abolition but also was the first African American women’s rights activist, thus claiming women’s rights for women of colour too. Since she insisted on the importance of the mind she made two things very clear: Whatever your descent is you can be a human with a clear and sharp mind, and the colour of your body does not decide about your intellect. However, a body of colour does matter when it comes to equality and equivalence. Sojourner Truth’s famous speech, later entitled ‚And ain’t I a woman?’, criticised the ignorance of the white women’s movement for having forgotten about women of colour.
It was not until 2009 that a statue of Sojourner Truth was unveiled in the Capitol building, and in 2014 the Smithsonian magazine listed her as one of the “100 Most Significant African Americans of All Time”.