Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In 1815, Isabella, a slave girl of about seventeen living in Ulster County, New York, married Thomas, an older man who belonged, as she did, to the Dumont family. . . . Shortly before the final emancipation took effect, Isabella's five-year-old son was sold away from her, south to Alabama. This constituted a violation of New York law; the newly free Isabella took the remarkable step of suing for and obtaining the boy's return, an act that set a pattern for her lifetime of resolute opposition to injustice. . . . She warned of the Second Coming of Christ and demanded the abolition of slavery throughout the nation. In 1843, she adopted the name Sojourner Truth, appropriate for a traveling herald of the Divine Word." [Howe: What Hath God Wrought, p. 50-1]