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The text of Sojourner Truth is taken from a speech delivered by Sojourner Truth at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.  Sojourner Truth was born a slave in Ulster County, New York and named Isabella.  She was sold away from her mother as a young girl and served five successive masters, running away from the last shortly before New York freed its slaves in 1817.  She chose the name Sojourner Truth because "I was to travel up an' down the land showin' the people their sins...and the Lord gave me Truth because I was to declare the truth to the people."  Her speech in 1851 was transcribed by Frances Gage who introduced her.

"I rose and announced 'Sojourner Truth,' and begged the audience to keep silence for a few moments.  The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eyes piercing the upper air like one in a dream.  At her first word there was a profound hush.  She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and away through the throng at the doors and windows.

'Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be somethin' out of kilter.  I think that between the niggers of the South and the women of the North, all takin' about rights, the white man will soon be in a fix!  But what's all this talkin' about?

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 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!  (And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power.)  I have poughed 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've borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out in my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me!  And ain't I a woman?

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the whole 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 are asking to do it, the men better let 'em.

'Bliged to you for hearin' me, and now ol' Sojourner has go nothin' more to say.'"

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