"Ain't I a Woman?"

In 1852, while lecturing against slavery in various parts of the East and Middle West, [Sojourner Truth] decided to move on to Akron, Ohio, where a woman's rights convention was in session. Woman's rights was an issue only a bit less unpopular than slavery itself. Any convention of its advocates was sure to attract friends and foes alike, and the meetings very probably would develop into oratorical free-for-alls.

Among the strongest opponents of the idea were members of the clergy. They were in attendance in large numbers at the Akron convention. But they and their opposition had been expected; the meetings had been prepared with such a contingency in mind. What had not been anticipated was a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white collar, surmounted by an uncouth sunbonnet, who walked deliberately into the church where the meetings were being held, and with great poise and dignity marched up the aisle to take a seat upon the pulpit steps.

Inevitably the rumor circled round the hall, "Sojourner!" Surprise among the leaders speedily yielded to chagrin, and then to open disapproval. Here was a mighty perilous bit of presumptuousness and intrusion. Woman's rights nothing, their enemies would say - this was merely a disguised abolition affair.

The buzz of disapproval was very pronounced.

Affairs became so confused that the chairman had to rap vigorously for quiet and order. The morning session progressed like a procession across egg shells. All the while, Sojourner remained seated, quietly crouched down against the wall in a corner of the pulpit stairs, with her sunbonnet shading her eyes, her elbows on her knees, and her chin resting upon her broad hard palm....

But ever since her unannounced entrance into the auditorium, the convention was surcharged with the fear that at some moment Sojourner would arise to speak and thereby jeopardize the purpose for which the convention had been assembled. A constant patter of feet toward the chairman of the meeting was the result of Sojourner's presence; for the chairman must be reminded over and over that under no circumstances should she permit the Negro woman to utter a word.

"Whatever you do," they whispered to the chairman, "don't let this woman speak. It will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with abolition and niggers. We shall be utterly denounced."

The second day of the convention arrived. Sojourner had remained so still that the fears of the group were lulled temporarily, and the two dissenting factions lashed out in open battle against each other. Various ministers called on all their powers of persuasion to pour contempt on the movement which in a later day would result in the Nineteenth Amendment.

"Why should not men have superior rights and privileges?" disdainfully asked one of these men. "Just look at their superior intellects."

Still another pointed to Jesus Christ.

"If God had desired the equality of woman," he opined, "he would have given some token of his will through the birth, life, and death of the Saviour."

"Look at what happened on account of Eve," pointed out a third preacher.

WOMAN'S RIGHTS WAS COMING in for a very hard time. The timid women folk were no match for the more experienced men. They by their arguments had drawn much applause as well as sneers and raillery against woman's rights from rough men and boys in the galleries. A complete rout was in prospect.

All this time Sojourner Truth had scarcely lifted her head. But this was mere pose. Never had her mind been more greatly agitated, her rage more vehemently stirred. If ever she prayed to her God it was during these hours; for the trick of the ministers of calling upon the name of the Deity to condone an injustice harked back too vividly to the tactics which the same clergy was employing in a cowardly defense of slavery.

For hours she had held her peace. Experience had bred a certain civility, and she would not ruthlessly trample in pastures where she had not been welcomed. But now she had heard more than she could stand. She was God's flaming messenger of Truth, and God simply would not endure a continuation of this maligning in His name!...Slowly she emerged from her half-hidden perch. A half dozen voices at once gasped into the chairman's ear, "Don't let her speak!"...

As Sojourner made her way to the platform, a hissing sound of disapproval rushed through the room....Unmindful and unafraid, the old black woman moved on, with slowness and solemnity, to the front. Then she laid her old bonnet at her feet and, fastening her great, speaking eyes upon the chairman, she sought permission to address the group.

The chairman turns to the audience and announces with befitting simplicity, "Sojourner Truth has a word. I beg of you to listen for a few moments." With electrical rapidity the air cleared. The hubbub gave way to absolute silence....

Every eye fixes on the tall angular form. Her chin high, her eyes gleaming, yet seeming more a part of some faraway body than of that quiet poised person in whose head they shine, she stands for an instant and appraises her audience....

"Well, chillun," she began with that familiarity which came to her so readily whether she was addressing God or man, "whar dar is so much racket, dar must be something out o' kilter. I t'ink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf an' de women at de Norf all a-talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon.

"But what's all dis here talkin' about?"

She wheeled round in the direction of one of the previous speakers...

"Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to have best place everywhere. Nobody eber helped me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or give me any best place!"

She raised herself to her full height and in a voice as rumbling as thunder roared, "And ain't I a woman?"

A low murmur advanced through the crowd.

"Look at me," she continued. "Look at my arm."

She bared her right arm to the shoulder and dramatically demonstrated its great muscular power.

"I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns" - her voice was singing into the ether - "and no man could head me, and ain't I a woman?"

The murmur became more vocal.

"I have born'd five childrun and seen 'em mos' all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with mother's grief, none but Jesus heard - and ain't I a woman?"...

"Den dey talks 'bout dis t'ing in de head - what dis dey call it?"

"Intellect," whispers someone near by.

"Dat's it, honey - intellect. Now, what's dat got to do wit women's rights or niggers' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?"

Now the crowd...rocks the church with applause and cheers, and echoes its approval of her words by pointing scornful fingers at the minister whom a few minutes ago it had applauded for sentiments in exactly the opposite key.

"Den dat little man in black dar," she continued, referring to another minister, "he say women can't have as much rights as man, 'cause Christ warn't a woman. Whar did your Christ come from?" she thundered at him, her arms outstretched, her eyes shooting fire. This was a lightning thrust. The throng sat perfectly quiet.

Then, raising her voice as high as it was possible for her to do, she repeated the query.

"Whar did your Christ come from?"

She hesitated a moment, poised over the audience like a bird hovering just before a final swoop down upon its prey, then thundered, "From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with him!"

The audience was overwhelmed. It could not endure so much logic and oratory at one time. Pandemonium broke loose.

But Sojourner was not quite through. She turned finally to the man who had made a deprecating gesture at Eve, and rebuked him;

"If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside downfall alone - dese togedder ought to be able to turn it back and get it rightside up again; and now dey is asking to do it, de men better let'em."

Amidst deafening cheering and stamping, Sojoumer Truth, who had arisen to catcalls and hisses, could hardly make herself heard as she shouted in conclusion, "Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me; and now ole Sojourner hain't got nothing more to say."

Excerpted from Sojourner Truth: God's Faithful Pilgrim, by Arthur Huff Fausel, published by University of North Carolina Press, 1938, and reissued by Russell & Russell, 1971.