r for a year; per agreement, he freed her in 1827.
Isabella then set about retrieving Peter, who had been sold South. Although illiterate, she learned enough law to sue for his freedom in Kingston, New York, where the sale transaction had taken place: she won the case and was reunited with her child. For a number of years thereafter she worked as a domestic in New York City.
This lawsuit alone would have earned her a footnote in the history of American slavery, but - adopting the name "Sojourner Truth" - she was destined to become a publicity magnet for the abolitionist movement. First there was notoriety: Sojourner Truth became involved with a group following the "prophet" Mathias in the 1830s-40s, living and working on their religious commune. It was an age when religion was a main fact of American life (Pauli 4), a mainstream form of social commitment. However, one of the Mathias group was murdered; Sojourner and others were forced to stand trial. She was freed of any implication in the murder but, disillusioned with the city, left it in 1843 - on foot, abandoning all possessions, to find hospitality and livelihood wherever she could as an itinerant preacher.
It was in this capacity that Sojourner Truth reached fame and prominence in the North - largely among whites, whom she challenged constantly (Pauli 191). She had a strong, almost mystical effect on audiences and frequently tamed hostile crowds by her fearless attitude and pithy comments. Facing down a segregationist crowd of Indiana Democrats in 1858, she was accused of being too bold to be a woman - and threatened with having her breasts exposed to the women to have her "lie" revealed. In response, Sojourner Truth ripped open her dress, declaring:
I'll show my breasts to the whole congregation - it's to your shame I'm doing this, not to mine. ... These breasts have suckled many a white babe when they should have been suckling my own. ... Some of th...