ALERT: Is it 1851, all over again :ALERT

"Ain't I a Woman?", December 1851 

If you would like to read more about this amazing African American evangelist and reformer who applied her religious fervour to the abolitionist and women's rights movements. She supported herself by selling copies of her book, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth, which she had dictated to Olive Gilbert. Harriet Beecher Stowe published the following account of her visit with Truth. I have not read the whole book, but what I have read, wow, for someone who could not read or write and in her youth spoke only Dutch. She tells her story with passion and thought, and her memory clear and concise. Why this post is here, go back to a post for Feb 27, 2012, posted on March 16, 2012 titled "10 Reasons the Rest of the World Thinks the U.S. Is Nuts" the last paragraph mentions Sojourner Truth, with a quote and I did not know who she was, and since I did not know I am sure the men mentioned in the article did not know her either. 

She visited President Lincoln. On this page appears a painting in which the President is showing her a Bible given to him by slaves.

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[This is a much less cleaned up version, than that normally given. It is worth reading outloud.]

Sojourner Truth (c.1792-1883) - was the adopted name of a woman born in New York who escaped from slavery shortly before mandatory emancipation became law in the state in 1828. Truth was nearly six feet tall and physically powerful from her years of hard labor. She gave this speech - which made her famous at the time it in Akron, Ohio, at a women 's rights meeting in May, 1851. This version includes an introduction a setting of the scene.

Sojourner Truth, Mrs. Stowe's "Lybian Sibyl," was present at this Convention. Some of our younger readers may not know that Sojourner Truth was once a slave in the State of New York, and carries to­day as many marks of the diabolism of slavery, as ever scarred the back of a victim in Mississippi. Though she can neither read nor write, she is a woman of rare intelligence and common­sense on all subjects. She is still living, at Battle Creek, Michigan, though now 110 years old. [note: In fact at time of publication she was c. 84 years old] Although the exalted character and personal appearance of this noble woman have been often portrayed, and her brave deeds and words many times rehearsed, yet we give the following graphic picture of Sojourner's appearance in one of the most stormy sessions of the Convention, from:

Reminiscences by Frances D. Gage: Sojourner Truth.

The leaders of the movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white turban, surmounted with an uncouth sun­bonnet, march deliberately into the church, walk with the air of a queen up the aisle, and take her seat upon the pulpit steps. A buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the house, and there fell on the listening ear, "An abolition affair!" "Woman's rights and niggers!" "I told you so!" "Go it, darkey!";

I chanced on that occasion to wear my first laurels in public life as president of the meeting. At my request order was restored, and the business of the Convention went on. Morning, afternoon, and evening exercises came and went. Through all these sessions old Sojourner, quiet and reticent as the "Lybian Statue," sat crouched against the wall on the comer of the pulpit stairs, her sunbonnet shading her eyes, her elbows on her knees, her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms. At intermission she was busy selling the "Life of Sojourner Truth," a narrative of her own strange and adventurous life. Again and again, timorous and trembling ones came to me and said, with earnestness, "Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage, it will ruin us.

Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed up with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly denounced." My only answer was, "We shall see when the time comes."

The second day the work waxed warm. Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Universalist ministers came in to hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One claimed superior rights and privileges for man, on the ground of "superior intellect"; another, because of the "manhood of Christ; if God had desired the equality of woman, He would have given some token of His will through the birth, life, and death of the Saviour." Another gave us a theological view of the "sin of our first mother."

There were very few women in those days who dared to "speak in meeting"; and the august teachers of the people were seemingly getting the better of us, while the boys in the galleries, and the sneers among the pews, were hugely enjoying the discomfiture, as they supposed, of the "strong-­minded." Some of the tender ­skinned friends were on the point of losing dignity, and the atmosphere betokened a storm. 

When, slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner Truth, who, till now, had scarcely lifted her head. "Don't let her speak!" gasped half a dozen in my ear. She moved slowly and solemnly to the front, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned her great speaking eyes to me. There was a hissing sound of disapprobation above and below. I rose and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged the audience to keep silence for a few moments. 

The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eyes piercing the upper air like one in a dream. At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and away through the throng at the doors and windows.

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud­puddles, or gibs me any best place!" And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, "And a'n't I a woman?

Look at me! Look at my arm! (and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power). I have ploughed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And a'n't I a woman?

I could work as much and eat as much as a man-when I could get it-and bear de lash as well! And a'n't I a woman?

I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And a'n't I a woman?

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" ("Intellect," whispered some one near.) "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's 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?"

And she pointed her significant finger, and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud.

"Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?"

Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with outstretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated,

"Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him." Oh, what a rebuke that was to that little man.

Turning again to another objector, she took up the defense of Mother Eve. I can not follow her through it all. It was pointed, and witty, and solemn; eliciting at almost every sentence deafening applause; and she ended by asserting:

"If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all alone, dese women togedder (and she glanced her eye over the platform) ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now dey is asking to do it, de men better let 'em."

Long continued cheering greeted this.

" 'Bleeged to ye for hearin' on me, and now ole Sojourner han't got nothin' more to say."

Amid roars of applause, she returned to her corner, leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes, and hearts beating with gratitude. She had taken us up in her strong arms and carried us safely over the slough of difficulty turning the whole tide in our favor. I have never in my life seen anything like the magical influence that subdued the mobbish spirit of the day, and turned the sneers and jeers of an excited crowd into notes of respect and admiration. Hundreds rushed up to shake hands with her, and congratulate the glorious old mother, and bid her God­speed on her mission of "testifyin' agin concerning the wickedness of this 'ere people."

From Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda J. Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage, vol. I (1881; reprint, New York: Arno Press, 1969), pp. 114­17.

In 1853, Sojourner Truth visited writer and abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe in her home at Andover, Massachusetts. Stowe's anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, was published in 1852 and had become a best-seller.

Stowe apparently saw Truth as a primitive original, fitting the ex-slave into her romanticized view of blacks in general. She described Sojourner to sculptor William Wetmore Story, who used this idealized portrait as the basis of a statue, which he called "The Libyan Sibyl."

This statue was exhibited at the 1862 World Exposition in London and was widely admired. The public soon became aware that the image was loosely based upon Sojourner Truth, which increased her notoriety. In 1863, Stowe published the following account of her visit with Truth and the identification of Sojourner with the Libyan Sibyl became almost universal. Newspapers referred to Truth as the "Sibyl" and Sojourner even described herself as the "well known Mrs. Stowe's African Sybil." (Rochester Evening Express, March 13, 1867)

Stowe's article depicts Truth as a brooding, powerful, mysterious African, which appealed to contemporary American tastes. In the process, Stowe perpetuated several myths about Sojourner, including the idea that she was of African origin and spoke with a Southern dialect. The embellished story of the confrontation with Frederick Douglass, including the phrase, "Is God dead?" is also included in Stowe's article.
 
Stowe also indicates that Truth was dead when she wrote in 1863, though Sojourner lived for another twenty years.

For an extended discussion of this subject, see Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth, Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York University Press, 1995), pp. 110-5 or Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol, (W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 151-63.