Biography
Sojourner Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, was an African-American abolitionist and women's rights advocate. Born into slavery in Swartekill, NY, she escaped to freedom with her infant daughter in 1826 and successfully sued for the recovery of her son Peter from slavery in 1828, becoming one of the first Black women to win such a case against a white man in U.S. court. She was repeatedly threatened with state-law arrest for streetcar integration in Washington, D.C. during the Civil War. While Truth was never imprisoned for any duration, her courtroom victories and public confrontations with state-level slavery and segregation laws are foundational political-prisoner-adjacent cases.
