SAINT OF THE WEEK

Sojourner Truth
(feast day: Nov. 26)

Sojourner Truth, named Isabella by her master, escaped from slavery to freedom in 1826 and worked for several years as a domestic in New York City. But when she heard a call to travel, going “up and down the land, showing the people their sins and being a sign unto them,” she changed her name and became an itinerant evangelist for the causes of abolition and women’s rights.

In 1864, she traveled to Washington, D.C., to encourage Abraham Lincoln in his struggle against the Confederacy, staying on to minister to the ex-slaves who had gathered in refugee camps.

She was still there on December 12, 1865, when Congress ratified its thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States.