Q: Who was the former slave who became the first black woman in America to win a court case against a white man? She sued to get back her five-year-old son who had been sold to a plantation owner in Alabama. She later became an outspoken abolitionist, giving her most famous speech at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention.
A: Born into slavery, Sojourner Truth escaped to freedom with her infant daughter in 1826. After her escape, she learned that her five-year-old son, Peter, had been sold to a plantation owner in Alabama. With the help of a family that took her in after her escape, Truth sued the man who’d sold Peter. After months of legal proceedings, Peter was returned and Truth became one of the first black women to take a white man to court and win the case.
Later, Truth spoke out against equalities, giving her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the 1851 Ohio Women’s Rights Convention. Over the next decade, Truth spoke before many audiences. Later, she recruited black troops for the Union Army during the Civil War and desegregated street cars in Washington, DC.