Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?"

On  the 29th of May 1851 enslaved woman and abolitionist , Sojourner Truth delivered her famous stirring"Ain't I a Woman?" speech to the Women's Rights Convention in Akron. Ohio . The speech challenged discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and intellectual ability, and lays  bare the cruelty of slavery and would become a pivotal moment in the women's rights movement.

Born into slavery in Ulster County, New York, as Isabella Baumfree. Her  early  childhood was spent on a New York estate owned by a Dutch American named Colonel Johannes Hardenbergh. Like other slaves, she experienced the miseries of being sold and was cruelly beaten and mistreated. Around 1815 she fell in love with a fellow slave named Robert, but they were forced apart by Robert’s master. Isabella was instead forced to marry a slave named Thomas, with whom she had five children. In 1827, after her master failed to honor his promise to free her or to uphold the New York Anti-Slavery Law of 1827, Isabella ran away, or, as she later informed her master, “I did not run away, I walked away by daylight….” 

After experiencing a religious conversion she became a itinerant Pentecostal preacher and an outspoken abolitionist and supporter of womens rights. She traveled throughout the northeast and midwest, of the USA speaking publicly and (famously) singing her message as well.and in  1843, Isabella changed her name to Sojourner Truth. 

According to Frances Gage, the president of the Convention at the the time of her famous speech, on the second day several male ministers showed up and argued that women should not have the same rights as men. The ministers reasoning: women were weak, men were intellectually superior to women, Jesus was a man, and our first mother sinned. 

Sojourner Truth rose and (amidst protests from some of the women who feared shed talk about abolition) delivered her short, masterful speech. invoking tenets of Christianity and using her strong, imposing presence to debunk the ministers arguments

By all accounts, as Truth spoke, the crowd in the church rose and wildly applauded.Several versions of Truths famous speech exist today .One version was published a month after the speech was given in the newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle by Rev. Marius Robinson, a friend of Truth's. 

The most famous  however is an 1863 account of the speech as remembered by Frances Gage. but  some believe that Gage changed the speech so that Truth would sound more like a Southern slave. In fact, Truth did not speak in a Southern style, having been born in New York and speaking Dutch until age 9. 

Both versions of the speech are included below.

Narrative of Sojourner Truth : Ain't I A Woman?

Delivered 1851.Women's Rights Convention,  Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

 Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say

  Anti-Slavery Bugle version:

' May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded; I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights [sic]. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and man a quart—why can’t she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much—for we won’t take more than our pint’ll hold.

The poor men seem to be all in confusion and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won’t be so much trouble.

I can’t read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept—and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?

But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.'

Regardless, of the two different versions . what remains  undisputed  and beyond doubt  is that Truth's speech.and many others she gave throughout her adult life, moved audiences, and .with her voice  straightforwardly described the predicament of Black women, who were not even afforded the paternalistic treatment their white counterparts received.

Truth  would continue speaking throughout the rest of her life, advocating for women’s rights, equality and suffrage. and when   the Civil War started, Truth urged young men to join the Union cause and organized supplies for black troops. After the war, she was honored with an invitation to the White House and became involved with the Freedmen’s Bureau, helping freed slaves find jobs and build new lives. While in Washington, DC, she lobbied against segregation, and in the mid 1860s, when a streetcar conductor tried to violently block her from riding, she ensured his arrest and won her subsequent case. In the late 1860s, she collected thousands of signatures on a petition to provide former slaves with land, though Congress never took action. Nearly blind and deaf towards the end of her life, Truth spent her final years in Michigan.until her death in 1883 where her funeral was said to be one of  the largest he town had ever seen.. 

Many readings of Truth’s famous speech have since been recorded, including some by notable actresses like Kerry Washington and Alfre Woodward, as well The Color Purple author Alice Walker. All three readings follow the transcript containing the “Ain’t I a Woman” phrasing,

More than a century since her speech, Truth's words continue to resonate with generations, being taught in schools and "Ain't I a Woman" emblazoned on t-shirts, posters, pins and more.Her words continue to impact American society as a beacon of hope and equality, Sojourner Truth's bold assertion of her own identity, serves as a timely reminder that the fight for equality has always been, and will continue to be, a constant challenge and an ongoing rhetorical and physical process that continues  to  resonate and speak to us today.