According to historian Michael Staudenmaier, "The Sojourner Truth Organization was founded in Chicago at the end of 1969, partly by people who had been involved with the RYM II faction of the recently crumbled SDS.
In the same period, the organization began to emphasize both the theory and the practice of anti-imperialism, participating in solidarity efforts around issues ranging from Puerto Rican independence to the liberation of Iran from the Shah.
In any event, this framework guided the group's expansion throughout the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, when an STO presence (or at the very least, influence) could be found in places like San Francisco, Portland, Denver, New Orleans, and New York.
While entering what one former member refers to as the group's "dotage," STO began to emphasize the need to intervene in various social movements in ways that could further a vision of autonomy and mass direct action outside the bounds of loyal opposition to capitalism.
In practice, this meant greater participation in anti-fascist, anti-nuclear and anti-militarization struggles, an abortive attempt to re-invigorate point-of-production organizing, and a growing awareness of the quasi-anarchist critique of pretensions to vanguard party status.