Editing Sojourner Truth (section)

=="Ain't I a Woman?"==
{{Further|Ain't I a Woman?}}

In 1851, Truth joined [[George Thompson (abolitionist)|George Thompson]], an abolitionist and speaker, on a lecture tour through central and western New York State. In May, she attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in [[Akron, Ohio]], where she delivered her famous extemporaneous speech on women's rights, later known as "[[Ain't I a Woman?]]". Her speech demanded equal human rights for all women. She also spoke as a former enslaved woman, combining calls for abolitionism with women's rights, and drawing from her strength as a laborer to make her equal rights claims.

The convention was organized by [[Hannah Tracy Cutler|Hannah Tracy]] and [[Frances Dana Barker Gage]], who both were present when Truth spoke. Different versions of Truth's words have been recorded, with the first one published a month later in the ''Anti-Slavery Bugle'' by Rev. [[Marius Robinson]], the newspaper owner and editor who was in the audience.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1851-06-21/ed-1/seq-4/ |title=Women's Rights Convention. Sojourner Truth. |page=160 |date=June 21, 1851 |work=Anti-Slavery Bugle |via=''Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers'', [[Library of Congress]] |access-date=May 9, 2017 }}</ref> Robinson's recounting of the speech included no instance of the question "Ain't I a Woman?", nor did any of the other newspapers reporting of her speech at the time. Twelve years later, in May 1863, Gage published another, very different, version. In it, Truth's speech pattern appeared to have characteristics of Black slaves located in the southern United States, and the speech was vastly different from the one Robinson had reported. Gage's version of the speech became the most widely circulated version, and is known as "Ain't I a Woman?" because that question was repeated four times.<ref>Craig, Maxine Leeds. ''Ain't I A Beauty Queen: Black Women, Beauty, and the Politics of Race'', Oxford University Press 2002, p. 7. {{ISBN|0-19-515262-X}}</ref> It is highly unlikely that Truth's own speech pattern was like this, as she was born and raised in New York, and she spoke only upper New York State low-Dutch until she was nine years old.<ref name="Mabee" />

In the version recorded by Rev. Marius Robinson, Truth said:

{{blockquote|I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. [''[[sic]]''] 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.<ref>{{cite web|title=The Sojourner Truth Project|url=https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/|work=www.thesojournertruthproject.com|access-date=December 26, 2021}}</ref>}}

In contrast to Robinson's report, Gage's 1863 version included Truth saying her 13 children were sold away from her into slavery. Truth is widely believed to have had five children, with one sold away, and was never known to boast more children.<ref name="Mabee">Mabee, Carleton; Susan Mabee New house. ''Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend'', NYU Press, 1995, pp. 67–82. {{ISBN|0-8147-5525-9}}</ref> Gage's 1863 recollection of the convention conflicts with her own report directly after the convention: Gage wrote in 1851 that Akron in general and the press, in particular, were largely friendly to the woman's rights convention, but in 1863 she wrote that the convention leaders were fearful of the "mobbish" opponents.<ref name="Mabee" /> Other eyewitness reports of Truth's speech told a calm story, one where all faces were "beaming with joyous gladness" at the session where Truth spoke; that not "one discordant note" interrupted the harmony of the proceedings.<ref name="Mabee" /> In contemporary reports, Truth was warmly received by the convention-goers, the majority of whom were long-standing abolitionists, friendly to progressive ideas of race and civil rights.<ref name="Mabee" /> In Gage's 1863 version, Truth was met with hisses, with voices calling to prevent her from speaking.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last1=Stanton|editor-first1=Elizabeth Cady|editor-link1=Elizabeth Cady Stanton|editor-last2=Anthony|editor-first2=Susan B.|editor-link2=Susan B. Anthony|editor-last3=Gage|editor-first3=Matilda Joslyn|editor-link3=Matilda Joslyn Gage|title=History of Woman Suffrage| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=O4kEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA115 |access-date=December 3, 2014 |edition=2|volume=1|year=1889|publisher=Susan B. Anthony|location=Rochester, N.Y|pages=115–116|lccn=93838249}}</ref> Other interracial gatherings of black and white abolitionist women had in fact been met with violence, including the burning of [[Pennsylvania Hall (Philadelphia)|Pennsylvania Hall.]]

According to Frances Gage's recount in 1863, Truth argued, "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 helps&nbsp;''me''&nbsp;any best place.&nbsp;''And ain't I a woman?"''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/255207?webSiteCode=SLN_AMHIST&returnToPage=%2fSearch%2fDisplay%2f255207&token=01CE12D3C06E488B455F883D9DE91E77&casError=False|title=Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a Woman? speech (1851)|website=ABC-CLIO|access-date=October 26, 2017}}{{dead link|date=June 2018|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" showed the lack of recognition that black women received during this time and whose lack of recognition will continue to be seen long after her time. "Black women, of course, were virtually invisible within the protracted campaign for woman suffrage", wrote [[Angela Davis]], supporting Truth's argument that nobody gives her "any best place"; and not just her, but black women in general.<ref>{{Cite book|title=[[Women, Race and Class]]|last=Davis|first=Angela|publisher=Vintage Books A Division of Random House|year=1981|page=140}}</ref>

Over the next 10 years, Truth spoke before dozens, perhaps hundreds, of audiences. From 1851 to 1853, Truth worked with Marius Robinson, the editor of the Ohio ''Anti-Slavery Bugle'', and traveled around that state speaking. In 1853, she spoke at a [[Women's suffrage|suffragist]] "mob convention" at the [[Broadway Tabernacle]] in New York City; that year she also met [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]].<ref name="Sojourner TruthInstitute"/> In 1856, she traveled to [[Battle Creek, Michigan]], to speak to a group called the [[Progressive Friends|Friends of Human Progress]].