To introduce our character we should talk firstly about slavery. This economical and social issue was originated by the necessity of chap workforce in North America, especially in the South where they cultivated plantations of cotton and others crops.
Americans had to look for slaves. They brought them from Africa where they chased them as animals, they separate them from their families and roots and they shipped them chained one to the other in the ship’s cellar, in the dark. That trip lasted among one month depending on the weather conditions as they had to cross the Atlantic sea what means that not all of them arrived sane and save. Here began the Transatlantic Slave Trade also called the triangular slave trade. The name of the triangular is because this trade affected three countries, Africa, America and Europe.
The first step was the Middle passage from Africa to America where slaves were recruited. Then the second one: from America to Europe where they sold sugar, tobacco and cotton and the last one, from Europe to Africa where they sold textiles, rum and manufactured goods.
In this context was born Sojourner Truth, a black slave a woman. Her master gave her the name of “Isabella Baumfree”. What an irony! When she was an adult she managed to escape to the North and became free. Once there, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth. Notably, a sojourn is to stay in a place temporally.
Once in the North, she began to deliver speeches and talks convincing people against slavery. She barely learnt to write and read but she was not ashamed for that and she wrote as she spoke, in a plain vocabulary with grammatical faults. This peculiarity instead of being a handicap helped her to be nearer her audience.
Sojourner Truth was one of the first abolitionist women to claim against slavery and against women discrimination. She fought for the Civil Rights Movement and for the Women Suffrage. In 1808 slave trade was banned but not slavery itself. A long time passed until slavery was abolished.
It could be said that Truth opened a path to other abolitionists such as William L. Garrison who founded in 1932 The Liberator , a newspaper supported seventy-five percent by African Americans .
Another activist who fought for Afro-American civil rights was Rosa Parks who in 1955, refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white person. As a result, she was arrested but it led to the Montgomery bus boycott and many Afro-American started to fight for their rights. The crucial point of this fight is represented in the figure of Martin Luther King, who led a pacifist march to claim against racial segregation.
Ain’t I a Woman?
This is the speech which S. Truth gave in a Women’s rights meeting in Ohio. Truth was an illiterate woman (because she had been a slave) and she wrote as she spoke, without avoiding grammar mistakes and using plain vocabulary. However, this made her speech fresher and closer to her audience who was white middle class.
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt (2) the negroes (3) of the South and the women of the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix (4)pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?. (S.Truth)
In this part of her speech, Truth speaks about those white people in the North who fight against racial discrimination in the South and, at the same time, defend women rights in the North. She is a woman and she is black, but she clarifies that these are different issues. White people have to “fix” their target.
Just as said before, this speech was first delivered in 1851. The American Civil War took place between 1860 and 1865. The working conditions of Black people in the South led to this conflict. In a way, Truth’s speech introduces one of the “supposed” reasons of the war.
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place (4)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 could 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 borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?. (S. Truth)
In this part of her speech she addressed the audience directly: “That man over there”. She clearly positions herself as a woman. She addresses directly to the audience. She wants relation with them, she looks for their reaction.
In her talks, she would use elements from previous conversations to make them look alive and improvised. She talked to white people in a very careful way: you are hypocritical; but she did not offend them. She claimed that she was also a woman, but they could not see it because she was black. White gentlemen did not behave like that with her, they did not open her carriage door. Ain’t I woman or aren’ t you gentlemen?
White men did not give the vote to women because they were supposed to be delicate and need to be protected. She is not trying to imitate educate people, she is telling them do not forget that she is a slave and she worked hard at plantation.
“Nobody gives me any best place”. As soon as I read this sentence, it came to my mind the case of Rosa Parks, to demonstrate that one century later, they followed with the same issues which must be remembered African American were not allowed to be seated in front of the buses.
Furthermore, there are two vocatives: “Look at me!” and “Look at my arm!” that shows the speaker is angry and wants to be heard.
When she talks about ploughing and planting she makes a reference to the slaves who worked in plantations in the South of North America. As a slave she has worked hard and she never has been treated as a “delicate” woman.
She says she would work and eat as much as a man, it was not well seen women ate as much as men, women had to be delicate and not to eat much. She speaks about equal rights between women and men
She says men think we are physically inferior but she had had thirteen children. ¨Fragility¨: you did not consider my fragility? You separate me from children and I survive it. You deny the right to be a mother . You don’ t consider me a woman?¨
She did not have the opportunity of enjoy her children. She had no rights because she was a slave.
Truth mentions Jesus frequently in her speeches. Religion became a refuge for many slaves who had to live hard work conditions and have to see how their children were taken apart from them. They considered that Christianity is their only source of comfort.
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? [Intellect, somebody whispers] That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negro’s rights? 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?. (S. Truth)
Truth interacts with her audience. She is careful to make clear that it is not a political speech. It is something informal. She is not educated, she does not know all the big words but she is not embarrassed with it.
With this metaphor what she is saying, I am not discussing if I am inferior or superior from an intellectual point of view but let me be free. Do not make such activities illegal.
“Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men,’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him” ( S. Truth).
She addresses the man in black, they represent the Church. She claims that the Church was not there when she needed it. When white men separated her from her children, nobody defended her as a woman or as a mother. She tells them they do not think they are equals because Christ is not a woman but Christ comes from God and a woman, not from a man.
“If the first woman God ever made (5) 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 (6) asking to do it, the men better let them” (S.Truth).
When she talks about “the first woman” she refers to Eve, she remarks that if Eve could change the world by herself, many women together can do great things. She is claimed for women to fight together.
Furthermore, what she is doing is taking all the excuses that white men use in order to not give women the same right to vote as men. She tells them how ridiculous those excuses are.
“Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say’ (S. Truth).
After all this criticism, Sojourner Truth always finished her speeches in a very humble way with humility. To show that she did not consider herself superior to be there talking to them.
It was important that the audience on those meetings came out motivated to be touched by the speech because most of them were very influential white men.
To sum up, we have to remark the importance of Truth’s speech as a first step into what was called Civil Rights Movement. Truth had a double handicap: she was black and she was a woman. For that reason, she fought against racial discrimination and at the same time, she defended her posture as a woman.
Years later, this path of “ Pacific activism” was followed by people such as Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King,jr or Malcom X. All of them decided to fight against discrimination following a pacifist philosophy which led to the Civil rights movement.
It was not until the 20thc that Afro-American people were recognized the same rights as white Americans by the Voting Right Act of 1965.
None of this would have been possible if pioneers like Sojouner truth had not opened this path.
