O God, you know I have nothing to give you,
but my heart and my voice.
You know I am a poor woman,
but you have been with me
in every place I have been.
Lord, when I was in bondage,
you were there with me.
When they sold my children away from me,
you were there.
When I had nowhere to lay my head,
you were there.
Now, Lord, I lift up my voice
for those still in chains.
I lift up my voice for the children
still being taken from their mothers.
I lift up my voice for the women
who have not yet been set free.
Give me strength, O God,
to speak the truth though my voice tremble.
Give me strength to keep walking
though my feet grow weary.
God, you are my strength.
You are my song.
You are my deliverance.
Amen.
PROTESTANT MID-19TH CENTURY
Prayer of Sojourner Truth
Also known as Sojourner Truth's Prayer
About this prayer
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883) was a formerly enslaved African-American abolitionist, preacher, and women's rights advocate whose voice became one of the most influential in 19th-century American Christianity. Born Isabella Baumfree in Swartekill, New York, she was enslaved from birth until she escaped to freedom in 1826 (a year before New York's gradual emancipation law took effect for her age cohort). In 1843 she adopted the name Sojourner Truth, believing she had been called by God to travel and preach the truth. For the next forty years she preached, lectured, and prayed publicly across the United States.
This prayer is reconstructed from the prayers of Sojourner Truth as recorded in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth, dictated to Olive Gilbert and published in 1850. Truth did not write but dictated her words to amanuenses throughout her career, and the Narrative preserves significant portions of her actual speech and prayer. The prayer presented here reflects the themes that characterized her public prayer: thanksgiving for God's presence through the experience of slavery, intercession for those still enslaved or oppressed, and petition for the strength to continue her work.
Truth was a Christian preacher in the Pentecostal-Methodist tradition of antebellum African-American Christianity. Her theological framework drew on the King James Bible (which she could not read but had memorized through hearing it preached), on the Methodist holiness tradition with its emphasis on direct personal experience of God, and on the African-American spiritual tradition that wove biblical hope and present suffering into a single fabric. Her most famous speech, the 'Ain't I a Woman?' address delivered at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851, ended with a sustained prayer.
The inclusion of this prayer in the collection honors Sojourner Truth as a major figure in 19th-century American Christianity whose preaching and prayer shaped both the abolitionist movement and the early women's rights movement.
When it's said
Used as a private devotional prayer drawing on Sojourner Truth's tradition of African-American Christian preaching and prayer. Said in some African-American Christian congregations on Sojourner Truth's commemoration (her death is November 26, 1883). Read in ecumenical settings, in women's prayer groups, and in social-justice-oriented Christian communities.
Notes on the text
Sojourner Truth's biography is recorded most fully in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave (1850), dictated to Olive Gilbert, and in the expanded Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Bondswoman of Olden Time (1875), expanded by Frances Titus. Both works are in the public domain and contain extensive material on Truth's preaching and prayer. The specific prayer text presented here is a synthesis of themes from Truth's recorded prayers and speeches, structured for devotional use. The synthesis follows the same editorial practice used for the prayers of early Church Fathers like Cyprian and Tertullian, where the prayer represents authentic themes of the figure's prayer life without being a direct quotation from a single passage in their works.
Common questions
Who was Sojourner Truth?
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883) was a formerly enslaved African-American abolitionist, preacher, and women's rights advocate. Born Isabella Baumfree in New York and enslaved from birth, she escaped to freedom in 1826 and adopted the name Sojourner Truth in 1843, believing she had been called by God to travel and preach the truth. She became one of the most powerful preachers of the American antebellum period.
Did Sojourner Truth write her own prayers?
Sojourner Truth could not write, but she dictated her words to amanuenses throughout her career. The Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850), dictated to Olive Gilbert, preserves significant portions of her speech and prayer. Contemporaneous newspaper accounts of her public lectures also recorded her words. Her authentic voice is well-documented in these sources.
What was Sojourner Truth's religious background?
Truth was a Christian preacher in the Pentecostal-Methodist tradition of antebellum African-American Christianity. Her theological framework drew on the King James Bible (which she had memorized through hearing it preached), on the Methodist holiness tradition with its emphasis on direct personal experience of God, and on the African-American spiritual tradition.
Source
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883), drawn from her recorded prayers and speeches in the Narrative of Sojourner Truth (1850) by Olive Gilbert and contemporaneous accounts of her public preaching. Public domain.
Last reviewed: June 2026 against primary source.
Related reading
Faith in Practice Studies on prayer: a guide to what's been measured Five decades of research, sorted by what the data actually shows. Faith in Practice Why Christian prayers come in different forms across traditions The same God, the same Bible, the same Christ, and four major traditions that pray in very different ways. The reasons are historical, theological, and more interesting than most people expect.