Abolitionist & Black Women’s Rights champion Sojourner Truth addresses the Women’s Rights Convention
On May 29, 1851 Sojourner Truth addressed the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention.
I cant read, but I can hear.
Sojourner Truth
Sojourner was born into slavery and became a prominent voice for abolition, African-American and women’s rights. She pushed the women’s rights advocates to include Black women in their campaign.
Sojourner Truth (c. 1797-1883), Human Rights Activist
Issued by USPS in 1986 as part of their
Black Heritage series
Designer: Jerry Pinkney
Forced into labor at just five years old, Truth endured harsh conditions and was sold three times. At nine, she was separated from her parents and sold for $100, the same price as a flock of sheep. By her final sale, she was purchased for approximately $200 (Sojourner Truth Memorial). She had between ten and twelve siblings, all of whom were also sold away.
In 1815, she fell in love with Robert, an enslaved man from a neighboring farm. Their love ended tragically when Robert’s enslaver had him murdered to prevent him from fathering children he could not enslave himself. James, Truth’s first child died in childhood, likely from the harsh and inhumane conditions of his enslavement.
Truth’s final enslavers were especially cruel. Under them, Truth suffered physical abuse and was repeatedly raped, resulting in the birth of her second child, Diana. Truth was later forced into a union with another enslaved man, Thomas, with whom she had Peter, Elizabeth , and Sophia (NPS). Truth later recalled that she struggled to properly feed her babies because she was expected to nurse her enslaver’s White children instead (New York Historical Society).
Sojourner Truth 1797-1883
An excellent, and detailed biography can be read at SojournerTruth.com. The article includes contemporary newspaper coverage, photos and a good dive into her life.
June 21, 1851 Transcription of Sojourner Truth’s Speech at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 29, 1851
transcription by Marius Robinson, convention recording secretary
I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. 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 as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a 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 can’t take more than our pint’ll hold. The
poor men seems 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 the woman who bore him. Man, where was 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, he is surely between a
hawk and a buzzard.
https://dn710704.ca.archive.org/0/items/rutherfordmchs/AintIAWomanspeech1851Version.pdf