Ain't I a Woman?
"Ain't I a Woman?" is a speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), born into slavery in New York State. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, and did not originally have a title.
The speech was briefly reported in two contemporary newspapers, and a transcript of the speech was published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle on June 21, 1851. It received wider publicity in 1863 during the American Civil War when Frances Dana Barker Gage published a different version, one which became known as Ain't I a Woman? because of its oft-repeated question. This later, better known and more widely available version was the one commonly referenced in popular culture and, until historian Nell Irvin Painter's 1996 biography of Truth, by historians as well.
Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree in 1797 in New York State. Truth ran from her master in 1827 after he went back on his promise of her freedom. She became a priest and an activist throughout the 1840s-1850s.[1] She delivered her speech, "Ain't I a Woman?", at the Women's Rights Convention in 1851. Truth questions the treatment of white women compared to Black women. Seemingly pointing out a man in the room, Truth says, "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere."[2] In the Gage version, she exclaims that no one ever does any of these things for her, repeating the question, "And ain't I a woman?" several times. She says that she has worked and birthed many children, making her as much a woman as anyone else. There is no official published version of her speech; many rewritings of it were published anywhere from one month to 12 years after it was spoken.
The phrase "Am I not a man and a brother?" had been used by British abolitionists since the late 18th century to decry the inhumanity of slavery.[3] This male motto was first turned female in the 1820s by British abolitionists,[4] then in 1830 the American abolitionist newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation carried an image of a slave woman asking "Am I not a woman and a sister?"[3] This image was widely republished in the 1830s, and struck into a copper coin or token, but without the question mark, to give the question a positive answer.[4] In 1833, African American activist Maria W. Stewart used the words of this motto to argue for the rights of women of every race.
The first reports of the speech were published by the New York Tribune on June 6, 1851, and by The Liberator five days later. Both of these accounts were brief, lacking a full transcription.[5] The first complete transcription was published on June 21 in the Anti-Slavery Bugle by Marcus Robinson, an abolitionist and newspaper editor who acted as the convention's recording secretary.[6] The question "Ain't I a Woman?" does not appear in his account.[7]
Twelve years later, in May 1863, Frances Dana Barker Gage published a very different transcription. In it, she gave Truth many of the speech characteristics of Southern slaves, and she included new material that Robinson had not reported. Gage's version of the speech was republished in 1875, 1881, and 1889, and became the historic standard. This version is known as "Ain't I a Woman?" after its oft-repeated refrain.[8] Truth's style of speech was not like that of Southern slaves;[9] she was born and raised in New York, and spoke only Dutch until she was nine years old.[10][11][12]
