Works and Speeches
After moving to New York City in 1829, Isabella, at the time, joined the Methodist and African Zionist Churches which allowed her to receive public speaking training before embarking on her journey in 1843. In enlightenment of a spiritual rebirth, Isabella decided then to rename herself: Sojourner as a symbol of her purpose and Truth, as a reminder of her activism to come. Truth found a home base at George Benson’s Northampton Association of Education and Industry while traveling through Massachusetts for a couple years before it's unfortunate bankruptcy towards the end of the decade. Truth became interested in abolitionist efforts and the movement itself, and claimed abolitionism as her key theme before traveling through the northeast to continue her reform efforts, For two years she settled in Salem, Ohio working with Marius Robinson on the Anti-Slavery Bugle. It was at this time Sojourner started intertwining her reform efforts with women’s rights. In 1851, Sojourner was invited to speak at the Women’s Rights Convention which is where she delivered her most notorious speech: Ain’t I a Woman?. 1
Despite it's popular title, Sojourner Truth actually never says the words "Ain't I A Woman?" in her speech. This misaccurate information can be credited to Francis Gages' incorrect but most popular transcription of Truth's speech at the Convention. The transcription was published twelve years later in 1863 and changes most of Sojourner's words as well as gives her a false southern slave dialect, which is far from accurate since Sojourner most likely had a thick Dutch accent due to her upbringing in only Dutch.
Marius Robinson’s transcription published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle is the oldest and most accurate of Sojourner Truth’s popular speech given in Akron, Ohio. Sojourner conveys her similarities to those of a man by describing her strength, work, hunger, and intellect, but as a woman, is treated unjustly and unfairly. Truth’s speech, which was addressed to the President, advocates strongly for equal rights, and even Robinson can’t deny the power of her words and how it captured the audience at the Women’s Rights Convention. Published in the following weeks after Truth’s speech, Robinson quotes “It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience/ Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gestures, and listened to the strong and truthful tones.”2
Truth also attended the New York Equal Rights Association assembly in 1867, where she continued to fight for women’s suffrage: “If you want to get me out of the world, you had better get women votin’ soon. I shan’t go till I can do that.”1
During the Civil War Truth continued her activism work at the National Freedmen’s Relief Association at Arlington. When traveling to Washington D.C. to meet with President Lincoln, Sojourner was stunned at how freed slaves were treated, whether by society or their disgusting living conditions, and decided to volunteer as a nurse. After the war, she was appointed counselor of the Relief Association where she continued her government work, fighting for better lives of newly freed men and women. While she ended her government career in 1867, Truth kept lobbying for the establishment of a Freedmen’s state at 70 years old. She met with President Grant and the senate where she continued to fight. Truth worked with many activists including Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips. Harriet Beecher, author of Uncle Tom's cabin, compared Sojourner to the phetesses of the ancient world "Libyan Sibyl" which is a symbol of condemnation of African American slavery.
The Narrative of Sojourner Truth contains Truth’s life story, from her enslavement to escape to her work as an abolitionist and women’s right advocate. ilbert wrote the narrative which encapsulates her journey around the states traveling to speak on several occasions along with interactions with other abolitionists. Published in 1850, Truth often provided pamphlets of her narrative wherever she was speaking. Truth's Narrative would become her most notorious piece of work and would serve as a powerful first-hand account of the horrors of slavery. Truth stated in her Book of Life that slaves gave the District of Columbia its life through supplying the country with cotton: “Our nerves and sinews, our tears and blood, have been sacrificed on the altar of this nation’s avarice. Our unpaid labor has been a stepping-stone to its financial success. Some of its dividends must surely be ours.” 3
Sojourner Truth dedicated her entire life to activism, never failing to advocate passionately for those who couldn’t advocate for themselves through her speeches, which always included religious pathos, eloquence, and honesty, as well as her writings and beliefs.
1 Patten, Neil A. “The Nineteenth Century Black Woman As Social Reformer: The ‘New’ Speeches of Sojourner Truth.” Negro History Bulletin 49, no. 1 (1986): 2–5. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44176646.
2 Gilbert, Olive, Frances W Titus, and Susan B. Anthony Collection. Narrative of Sojourner Truth; a bondswoman of olden time. Boston, For the author, 1875. Pdf. 198. https://www.loc.gov/item/05020876/.
3 Anti-Slavery Bugle (New Lisbon, OH), June 21, 1851. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035487/1851-06-21/ed-1/seq-4/.
