An Apple Books Classic edition.

The Narrative of Sojourner Truth was first published in 1850—a dozen years before the Emancipation Proclamation. At the time, this rare, first-person account of the horrors of slavery was a revelation for readers. Truth’s unsentimental descriptions of her experiences, including the beatings she suffered and the time her toddler-aged brother hid under a bed when he learned he’d been sold from his parents, forced people to contemplate Truth’s simple, penetrating question: “What a way is this of treating human beings?”

The book goes on to chronicle Truth’s trailblazing life. After she escaped enslavement, she toured the country, speaking to abolitionists and calling out those that didn’t include women’s rights in their fight for equality. Truth successfully sued a white man for her son’s freedom, escaped persecution from a cult, and, long before Rosa Parks took her famous bus ride, climbed aboard a whites-only streetcar. Sojourner Truth was born an enslaved person, but she died a freedom fighter. Her story deserves to be read, shared, and absorbed.