Part 1.

The Truth About Sojourner Truth's 1851 Speech, "Ain't I A Woman?"

"I am a woman's rights"
~Sojourner Truth

Photo: Sojourner Truth (original author) Library of Congress (digitalization) (Library of Congress),

Isabella "Belle" Baumfree; was an American abolitionist and women's rights activist.
She was born enslaved in Swartekill, Ulster County, New York around 1797. In 1826, she escaped enslavement with her infant daughter to freedom. In 1828 Truth went to court and fought to get back her son who had been illegally sold to a slaver in Alabama and she won her case. She became the first Black woman to go to court against a White man and win the case.

She gave herself the name Sojourner Truth in 1843, convinced that God had called her to leave the city and go into the countryside "testifying the hope that was in her".

During the Civil War, Truth helped recruit Black troops for the Union Army; after the war, she tried unsuccessfully to secure land grants from the federal government for formerly Enslaved people (summarized as the promise of "forty acres and a mule").

A memorial bust of Truth was unveiled in 2009 in Emancipation Hall in the U.S. Capitol Visitor's Center. She is the first Black American woman to have a statue in the Capitol building. In 2014, Truth was included in Smithsonian magazine's list of the "100 Most Significant Americans of All Time"

Sojourner Truth's best-known speech was delivered extemporaneously, at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 29, 1851.
The speech became widely known during the Civil War by the title "Ain't I a Woman?", which was a variation that changed most of the words in her original speech. Truth's original 1851 speech had been re-written 12 years later and published in 1863 by Frances Gage who used a stereotypical Southern slave dialect, whereas Sojourner Truth was from New York and grew up speaking Dutch as her first language.

"It is interesting to note that Marius Robinson and Sojourner Truth were good friends, and it was documented that they went over his transcription of her speech before he published it. One could infer from this pre printing meeting, that even if he did not capture every word she said, that she must have blessed his transcription and given permission to print her speech in the Anti‐Slavery Bugle."

Below is the transcription of Sojourner Truths original 1851 speech, "written by Marius Robinson, a journalist, who was in the audience at the Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 29, 1851."
@IrememberOurHistory®
"The oldest account of Truth's speech that provides more than a passing mention of it was published by Marius Robinson on June 21, 1851 in the Salem Anti‐Slavery Bugle, a few weeks after the speech was given. This version was not the first published account of the Akron speech, but rather the first attempt to convey what Sojourner Truth said in full."
He titled his article, "“On Woman’s Rights”

*The sentences that have an alphabet in parenthesis are noting the places that were changed by Frances Gage in her version of Sojourner Truth's speech.*
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May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter.

I am a woman’s rights.

(a) I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man.

(b) 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 (c) eat as much too, if (d) I can get it.

I am as strong as any man that is now.

As for intellect, all I can say is, (e) if women have a pint and 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 cant take more than our pint’ll hold.

The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and dont 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 wont be so much trouble.

I cant 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?

(f) Through God who created him and woman who bore him.

(g)Man, where is 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, and he is surely between-a hawk and a buzzard.
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Here Is,
"Frances Gage’s inaccurate version:
23 April 1863 issue of the
New York Independent
The most common yet inaccurate rendering of Truth's speech—the one that introduced the famous phrase "Ain't I a woman?"—was constructed by Frances Dana Gage, nearly twelve years after the speech was given by Sojourner at the Akron conference. Gage's version first appeared in the New York Independent on April 23, 1863. "
@IrememberOurHistory®
*The sentences that have an alphabet in parenthesis are noting the places that were changed by Frances Gage in her version of Sojourner Truth's speech.*
--
Well, chillen, whar dar’s so much racket dar must be som’ting out o’kilter.

I tink dat, ’twixt de niggers of de South and de women at de Norf, all a-talking ’bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon.

But what’s all this here talking ’bout?

Dat man ober dar say dat women needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have de best place eberywhar.

Nobody eber helps me into carriages or ober mud-puddles, or gives me any best place.

-And ar’n’t I a woman?

Look at me.

(a) Look at my arm.

(b) I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man could head me.

-and ar’n’t I a woman?

I could work as much as (c) eat as much as a man, (when (d) I could get it,) and bear de lash as well

-and ar’n’t I a woman?

I have borne thirteen chillen, and seen ’em mos’ all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard

-and ar’n’t I a woman?

Den dey talks ’bout dis ting in de head.

What dis dey call it?

Dat’s it, honey.

What’s dat got to do with women’s rights or niggers’ rights?

(e) If my cup won’t hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn’t ye be mean not to let me have a little half-measure full?
@IrememberOurHistory®
Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as man ’cause Christ wa’n’t a woman.

Whar did your Christ come from?

Whar did your Christ come from?

(f) From God and a woman.

(g)Man had nothing to do with him.

If de fust woman God ever made was strong enough to turn de world upside down all her one lone, all dese togeder ought to be able to turn it back and git it right side up again, and now dey is asking to, de men better let ’em.

Bleeged to ye for hearin’ on me, and now ole Sojourner ha’n’t got nothin’ more to say.

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Note: The sections above Truth's transcribed speech that are in quotations, as well as the transcribed speech, and the inaccurate version written by Gage are from "The Sojourner Truth Project" web site.

Link: https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/

Note: Other parts of this post are from Wikipedia.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truth