By filling her account with details about clothing and customs, references to famous people and historical events, advertisements and photographs, and other details, Bernard establishes her credentials as a researcher, making the narrative authentic and believable.

These details also lend depth and complexity to the portrayal of Sojourner.

Journey Toward Freedom touches on conditions of blacks in the South and on the sea by including brief descriptions of the sale of Sojourner's son Peter and his later work as a sailor on a whaling ship.

Sojourner travels often, and Bernard structures the story around her most important changes in location, focusing on a few important incidents from each period. Rather than spending an equal amount of time on all periods of Sojourner's life, Bernard presents key scenes from different locales, providing a vivid backdrop of nineteenth-century American culture and geography. In reconstructing these scenes, Bernard draws...