Sojourner Truth      Join the celebration

"HERSTORY"

     Northeast Ohio is a historical area for Women's Rights. In 1851 a Women's Rights Convention was held in Akron. This convention was attended by a number of local clergymen - some interested observers most beligerent intruders - who heatedly argued on biblical and religious grounds against the women's claims for equal rights. Since few women present dared to contradict men of the cloth, the preachers seamingly were getting the better of the feminists. Then - tall, gaunt and dignified Sojourner Truth rose from her seat in the corner and spoke:

    "Well children, where there i so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think 'twixt the negroes of the south and the women at the north, all talking about rights, the white man will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's this talking all about?

    That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and 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 born thirteen children and seen most of them sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mothers grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

    Then that little man in black there, he says that women can't have as much rights as men 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! 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, an' old Sojouner ain't got nothing more to say".

    Sojouner Truth had spent the first forty years of her life a slave: she dedicated the next forty to denouncing the sins commited against her people. She was a fervent feminist as well as an ardent abolitionist.