Today, the Bookshelf turns to the voice of Sojourner Truth, who spoke up for women’s rights at a time when she had no rights at all.
Truth was born in the late 18th century, around 1797, into slavery in New York, at a time when slavery was still legal in parts of the northern United States and widely practised in the South, where enslaved people were treated as property and could be bought, sold, and separated from their families.
Slavery in the United States operated within a transatlantic system from the 16th to the 19th century, during which millions of Africans were transported to the Americas. Approximately 12.5 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, of whom about 10.7 million survived. Around 388,000 were taken to mainland North America. After the trade ban in 1808, the enslaved population in the United States increased through births, reaching nearly 4 million by 1860.
Sojourner Truth (c.1797–1883), born Isabella Baumfree in Ulster County, New York, was enslaved from birth, speaking Dutch as her first language (Sojourner Truth Memorial Committee). She was sold as a child and separated from her family. Enslaved girls and women worked in fields, carried heavy loads, and had no legal claim over their children. Truth gained her freedom in 1827 under New York’s gradual emancipation law and later became involved in religious revival movements, adopting the name Sojourner Truth in 1843 to reflect her role as an itinerant preacher (Washington, Narrative of Sojourner Truth, 1875). Truth travelled widely across the northern United States, speaking on abolition, religion and women’s rights, often addressing mixed audiences at a time when both Black speakers and women were restricted in public life. Truth famously, successfully brought a legal case to recover her son, Peter, who had been illegally sold into slavery in the South (Painter, 1996; Washington, 1875). During the Civil War, she worked with organisations supporting formerly enslaved people and met with President Abraham Lincoln in 1864 (National Archives; Painter, 1996). Truth continued public speaking into later life and died in Battle Creek, Michigan, in 1883.
By the mid-19th century, movements against slavery and for women’s rights were beginning to organise publicly. Discussions of women’s rights centred on property, education and suffrage and did not reflect the conditions of women who had lived under slavery or in forced labour.
In 1851, at a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Sojourner Truth stood and spoke. She said this:
“Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that ‘twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what’s all this here talking about?
“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, lifted over ditches, and given 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! I 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 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?
“Then they talk about this thing in the head; what’s this they call it? (member of audience whispers, “intellect”) That’s it, honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negroes’ 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?
“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? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
“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! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
“Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain’t got nothing more to say.”
There is no single authoritative text of the speech. The version most widely reproduced was written down in 1863 by Frances Dana Barker Gage and differs from an earlier 1851 account. Both remain in circulation.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, women in the United States gained property rights, access to education and, in 1920, the vote. Black women in the South remained effectively disenfranchised until the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and continued to face barriers in practice. The 20th century saw increased participation of women in the workforce and the introduction of legislation, including the Equal Pay Act (1963) and Title IX (1972), expanding access to employment and education. By the early 21st century, women worked across professions and public office, though disparities in earnings, wealth and health outcomes remained, particularly among Black women.
Black women in the United States were 2.6 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women in 2022, according to figures released in 2023 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal data shows differences in wealth, income and access to care.
Globally, these differences extend across income, employment, education and health. Women earn, on average, about 20 per cent less than men worldwide (International Labour Organization, 2022) and are less likely to participate in the formal labour force, with lower representation in senior and higher-paid roles (World Bank, 2023). Girls’ access to education has expanded, but disparities remain in some regions, particularly at the secondary level and in rural areas (UNESCO, 2022). Women also perform a disproportionate share of unpaid care and domestic work, estimated at more than twice that of men globally (UN Women, 2023). Maternal mortality remains concentrated in low- and middle-income countries, with nearly 800 women dying each day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth (World Health Organization, 2023). One in three women globally experiences physical or sexual violence in her lifetime (World Health Organization, 2021).
At Akron, white women speakers did not address the condition of Black women. Truth, who had taken that name deliberately, spoke for those who had none.
Ira Mathur is a freelance journalist, a Guardian columnist, and the winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Prize for Non-Fiction.
