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Tasks: Ain't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth

Contextualise:

Before you study the speech, you should know more about the background of Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist movement in the United States, and the role of women in the 1800s.

Work in groups and divide the tasks among you. Spend a few minutes going through the provided sources, or other sources that you may find relevant. Take notes as you read. Then share what you have found with the rest of the group.

  1. Who was Sojourner Truth? Why has she become so important in the fight against slavery and for women's rights? What is her legacy?
    Relevant sources:
    Link to National Women's History Museum: Sojourner Truth
    Link to History: Sojourner Truth

  2. How were African Americans treated during this period? What rights were they deprived of? What did they fight for?
    Relevant sources:
    Link to The Constitutional Rights Foundation: An Overview of the African-American Experience
    Link to PBS: Race-based legislation in the North

  3. How were women treated differently from men in the 19th century? What rights were women deprived of, and what did they fight for?
    Relevant sources:
    Link to Library of Congress: Women's Suffrage in the Progressive Era
    Link to Encyclopedia.com: Women In The 19th Century

A black and white photo of Soujourner Truth, an old, Black woman sitting in a chair. She wears a dark dress and a white shawl and she has a white bonnet on her head. She's looking straight into the camera. Probably from the 1880s.
Soujourner Truth. Image: Unknown / CC0

Discuss:

Study the speech and discuss the following questions. Write down your answers.

  1. What impression do you get of Sojourner Truth from the speech? How does she present herself?

  2. What is the message of the speech? Why do you think she gave the speech?

  3. What is the tone of the speech?

  4. “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!” What does she mean by this? Who does she refer to?

  5. What rhetorical devices are used in the speech, and what is achieved by using them?

  6. She states that “If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full.” This is a reference to the common belief at the time that men had a greater intellect than women, and she uses the measurements of quart (larger) and pint (smaller) to bring forth her point. What is she suggesting about her right to fill up her cup, or to learn?

  7. This speech was given in front of mostly white women, but also some men. How do you think the audience reacted to Truth's speech?

  8. Sojourner Truth never learnt to read or write. Is it possible to see this in her speech?

Compare:

A black and white photo of Fredrick Douglass. He is a Black man dressed in a suit and a bow. He has thick hair and a beard. His expression is sad, or even angry.
Frederick Douglass. Image: Unknown / Public domain

Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth were both escaped slaves who later became prominent activists and public speakers. However, while Truth always had a female aspect included in her fight, Douglass focused more on the rights of Black people in general.

Below, you will find an extract from Douglass's speech What the Black Man Wants. Go through the speech and compare it to Ain't I a Woman?

  • Is one speech more powerful than the other? Which one leaves the strongest impression? Why?

  • Look for rhetorical devices used in the two speeches. Are the same devices used? How does Douglass's rhetoric differ from Truth's?

Frederick Douglass: What the Black man wants (1865)

We may be asked, I say, why we want it [the right to vote]. I will tell you why we want it. We want it because it is our right, first of all. No class of men can, without insulting their own nature, be content with any deprivation of their rights. We want it again, as a means for educating our race. Men are so constituted that they derive their conviction of their own possibilities largely from the estimate formed of them by others. If nothing is expected of a people, that people will find it difficult to contradict that expectation. By depriving us of suffrage, you affirm our incapacity to form an intelligent judgment respecting public men and public measures; you declare before the world that we are unfit to exercise the elective franchise, and by this means lead us to undervalue ourselves, to put a low estimate upon ourselves, and to feel that we have no possibilities like other men...

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us…Everybody has asked the question…“What shall we do with the Negro?”

I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us!...All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot-box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone,—your interference is doing him a positive injury…If you will only untie his hands, and give him a chance, I think he will live. He will work as readily for himself as the white man.

A great many delusions have been swept away by this war. One was, that the Negro would not work; he has proved his ability to work. Another was, that the Negro would not fight; that he possessed only the most sheepish attributes of humanity; was a perfect lamb, or an “Uncle Tom;” disposed to take off his coat whenever required, fold his hands, and be whipped by anybody who wanted to whip him. But the war has proved that there is a great deal of human nature in the Negro, and that “he will fight” as Mr. Quincy, our President, said, in earlier days than these, “when there is reasonable probability of his whipping anybody.”

Make a timeline:

  1. Make a timeline of the most important events of the women's rights movement in the United States.
  2. Make a timeline of the anti-slave movement in the United States.
  3. Make a timeline showing when different countries gave women the right to vote. Make a note of any countries that still do not permit women to vote in elections.

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