About Miss Truth

Happy Black History Month ❤

Sojourner Truth (c 1797—November 26, 1883)

was born in New York; her birth name being Isabella Baumfree. Her first language was Dutch, though she learned English at a young age. In late 1826, she escaped slavery with her daughter Sophia. New York emancipated all slaves in July 1927, but her son Peter was illegally sold to an Alabama man. "She took the issue to court and eventually secured Peter's return from the South. The case was one of the first in which a black woman successfully challenged a white man in a United States court... On June 1, 1843, Isabella Baumfree changed her name to Sojourner Truth, devoting her life to...the abolition of slavery...In 1850 her memoirs were published under the title 'The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: A Northern Slave'. Truth dictated her recollections to a friend, Olive Gilbert, since she could not read or write... That same year, Truth spoke at the first National Women's Rights Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts... In May of 1851, Truth delivered a speech at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron [where she delivered her famous "Ain't I A Woman?" speech]...She openly expressed concern that the [abolitionist] movement would fizzle after achieving victories for black men, leaving both white and black women without suffrage and other key political rights...On at least one occasion, Truth met and spoke with President Abraham Lincoln about her beliefs and her experience... In 1865, Truth attempted to force the desegregation of streetcars in Washington by riding in cars designated for whites. A major project of her later life was the movement to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves. She argued that ownership of private property, and particularly land, would give African Americans self-sufficiency and free them from a kind of indentured servitude to wealthy landowners. Although Truth pursued this goal forcefully for many years, she was unable to sway Congress... Until old age intervened, Truth continued to speak passionately on the subjects of women's rights, universal suffrage, and prison reform."

Source: Biography.com

Ain't I A Woman? by Sojourner Truth

Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention in 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.