BCR Leading Ladies: Sojourner Truth
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 them 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?*
SOJOURNER TRUTH was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797, a Dutch-speaking slave in Ulster County, NY. In 1843, after being sold twice and then leaving her owner, John Dumont, in 1826 after he reneged on his promise to free her, Isabella left slavery with her daughter Sophia, who was a baby and the youngest of her 5 children at that time. Describing the incident, Isabella said,
“I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right.”
Isabella took up residence with a Quaker family named Van Wagenen, who paid Dumont for the remainder of her services for the rest of the year (the NY emancipation act was to come into effect in 1827) to keep him from taking her and her baby back.
In the late 1820s, Isabella became a Christian, and she changed her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843 and started traveling the country preaching, and speaking for the women’s suffrage movement. She is probably best known for her 1854 “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, excerpted above. Interestingly, Truth never learned to read.
At six feet tall with a booming voice, Truth was a dramatic speaker. She passionately defended both women’s rights and abolition until her death in 1883. Truth’s memoir, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, was recorded in 1850 by Oliver Gilbert. It is available online for free. Truth met several presidents and other activists, including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Sources:
- Sojourner Truth
- Ain’t I a Woman?
- Sojourner Truth (Isabella Baumfree)
- Sojourner Truth: Abolitionist, Minister, Ex-Slave, Woman’s Rights Activist
- Sojourner Truth
- Sojourner Truth Memorial Statue Project
- Sojourner Truth: Abolitionist & Women’s Rights Advocate
- The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
(photo from the Library of Congress)
Tags: women and business, black history month, black women leaders, BCR leading ladies, sojourner truth, isabella baumfree
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