She ran away from slavery and giving up her own name took the name of Sojourner Truth.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “She ran away from slavery and giving up her own name took the name of Sojourner Truth.”
Editor's note · Context
Du Bois recounts the story of a woman who escaped slavery and adopted the name Sojourner Truth, symbolizing her mission for justice.
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Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.
Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.
Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.
The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land.