Sojourner Truth Speech

Sojourner Truth was a former slave mostly known for her influential speeches during a time of fighting for the rights of black people and women. Truth being both a woman and black found solace speaking on behalf of both. She attended multiple conventions and spoke in front of crowds of black and white people alike. In one of her many speeches, “Ain’t I a Woman ?”, former slave Sojourner Truth addresses the issue of women’s right and slavery in order to stand up to the white patriarchy. In Truths early life she was a slave from birth in around 1773 until 1826, when she ran away to a Quaker farmer who had kept her safe until the freedom of slaves in New York in 1827. Truth was born in 1773 and was born to a family owned by Dutch people. She

Sojourner Truth was a powerful speaker when it came to her opinions on women’s rights. At a women’s rights convention held in 1851 in Akron men attacked the idea of women’s rights and the women behind the movement. The women however did not stand up for themselves and disliked the thought of some one like Truth standing up for them. In an article by Teresa C. Zachodnik called “I Don’t Know How You Will Feel When I Get Through: Racial Difference, Women’s Rights, and Sojourner Truth” she said “… their ‘womanliness’ was necessarily risked by their acts of public speech as their ‘blackness’ was further reinforced” (Zachodnik). People thought it was unladylike to have such a brooding woman speak on behalf of their cause. The people had seen Truth as just another black woman pushing the abolitionists agenda. The women of the convention felt having Truth speak would link the want for women’s rights with abolitionism. Despite their rudeness to her, Truth still defended and spoke on behalf of the women attending the convention. This is further expressed in Zachodnik’s article when she said “with in reform association, particularly, their ability to be heard often depend on their appeal to their sense of ‘sisterhood’ with white women” (Zachodnik). Truth wanted to bond with the women who used to look down on her because of her race. Truth influenced and informed the audience by talking about her past. In Helen Lenahan’s article “‘Ain’t I a Woman?’- Sojourner Truth [29th May 1851]” she states “From her own brutal experience as a slave, Truth recalls the complete lack of any male concern for her ‘female fragility’ at the time” (Lenahan). She’s explaining that Truth was forced to do a mans job yet they wouldn’t allow women participate in legal outings that men were involved in. As a slave on a plantation, Truth was treated just like any other man and she made that fact known and thought was it