the National Woman's Suffrage Convention in Akron, Ohio in response to men that spoke before her on the lack of physical strength and intelligence of women. This speech and another of Truth’s speeches, “Keeping Things Going While Things Are Stirring,” are representative of early ideas of Intersectionality. Truth spoke of these ideas before the term was even coined. Truth speaks of her experiences of being a slave and black, and also of her experiences of being a woman. She speaks of both experiences to show her support for the women’s movement and to remind her listeners at the time that no two women’s experiences were the same based on race and economic standing. She was one of the earliest to recognize and speak about the idea of Intersectionality.
In Truth’s speech, “Ain’t I a Woman?” was in response to a previous speaker who had stated that women were inferior due to their weaker physical stature and lack of intelligence in comparison to men. That same speaker also expressed that because of these weaknesses woman needed to be treated with care (American Reformists). Truth makes her first distinction between races when she states, “Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman,” letting her listeners know that she was not treated in this “chivalrous” way because of her race (79). She than points out that she has done the same physical labor that men do and give birth to a child. Truth pointed out the different experience woman because of their race, and still recognizes the oppression that all women have experienced due to their sex.
In Truth’s Speech, “Keeping the Things Going While Things Are Stirring,” she addresses the issue of Intersectionality more. The second line of this speech she points out the differences between the experiences of a white woman and a black woman from the south at the time by stating, “I came from another field-the country of the slave” (79). She later points out the differences of black woman and white woman again when she states that “white women are a great deal smarter, and know more than colored women, while colored woman gets do not know scaresly anything,” speaking on the differences of education between the two groups (80).
She also speaks on the difference between men and women, recalling the times she did physical labor in the fields with men doing the same amount of work, but receiving half of what the men made due to her sex. She speaks clearly about her wish for women’s rights when she states, “I want women to have their rights. In the courts women have no right, no voice; nobody speaks for them,” and then shortly after makes the distinction between the races again by stating, “I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of colored women” (80). She speaks out against black men getting their rights but not black women and about all women not having rights. She makes it clear that she is for equal rights for everyone regardless of race and sex and says so clearly when she states, “I have been a forty years a slave and forty years free, and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all” (80).
Sojourner Truth played an important role in the abolition movement and the women’s movement. Her speeches moved many and have become part of American History. Equally as important was her ability to not only recognizes the differences between the races but to speak openly about them to black and white women alike. Truth was one of the earliest to see these differences and speak out in order to make a difference.
Works Cited
HW Wilson Company. (1985). Sojourner Truth. In American Reformers. Author. Retrieved February 24, 2008, from Wilson Web.
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