Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?

Sojourner Truth: "Ain't I a Woman?" Sojourner Truth was a former slave who became a preacher, abolitionist, and supporter of women's rights. She made her famous speech "Ain't I a Woman?" (retold here by Frances D. Gage) at a convention on women's rights in 1851 in Akron, Ohio. According to Gage, Truth made this speech in response to Protestant ministers' claims that men deserved greater privileges than women because of their "superior intellect" and because God had chosen Jesus Christ to take the form of a man. Truth may not have spoken in the heavy dialect presented by Gage; other accounts of the speech are closer to standard English. Although recent scholarship has questioned the accuracy of Gage's account, which she wrote 30 years after the convention, it remains a classic of American literature. "Ain't I a Woman?" ...