THE SUFFRAGIST: AIN'T I A WOMAN?

If we are talking about women who fought for having rights and being as free as men were, we have to talk about Sojourner Truth too.

That name makes us suspect something:

- “sojourner” means “someone who stays temporarily” and combined with the word “truth” makes us imagine that it is “a woman who had temporarily the truth”.

Sojourner Truth not only claimed rights of African Americans, but she also stood up for women's equality.

White and black women working together was an uneasy mix. Historically talking, it was a very difficult situation. The National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), started demeaning African American women. It cause was focused on enfranchisement for white women. So it started an emerging “Anti-Black” sense.

The main goal of NAWSA's movement was to marginalize as many African-American women as possible.

Through this effort African American women developed the idea of the "educated suffragist”, which meant that being educated was a requisite for being allowed to vote.

At first, African - American female activists organized themselves creating the African - American Suffrage Movement.The women's suffrage movement began with women such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Mary Church Terrell, Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Angela Davis, and many others.

After the Nineteenth Amendment was passed, women both in the North and in the South started voting. Because of white people’s fears of black ones having political power, black women faced a lot of difficulties to vote until the 1960s.

Her innumerable speeches asking for both women’s rights and freedom of slavery, made her a particular personality in American history.

Sojourner Truth was born as slave in New York, called Isabella Baumfree. This woman continued her journey going to Florence, Massachusetts, where is still remembered today by a statue in her honor.

There, she joined the Northampton Association of Education and Industry looking for justice and improvement of society.

Living in that town, she met the famous William Lloyd Garrison (who became a friend of her), and with other leaders, they achieved founding the antislavery resistance center.

Sojourner also met Olive Gilbert who wrote The Narrative of Sojourner Truth.

Before dying in Michigan in 1883, she met other important person and was photographed with him in a very controversial picture because of the disposition of them in the photo. This person was Abraham Lincoln, former President of the United States.

In the picture, we show here, we can see a black woman who is sitting and a white President who remains standing next to her.

During the 1840s, this courageous woman was involved in the antislavery movement, and by the 1850s she was also involved in the woman’s rights movement. Her most famous speech took place in 1851 at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. It was called: “Ain’t I a Woman?”

This spontaneous speech is one of the most well-known ones that remains in the American and World history.

She was known as an outspoken feminist and antislavery fighter. She could be proud, because she is still remembered by many people as an inspiring woman.

Many newspapers published this speech in different versions, but the most known one is the following:

http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/sojtruth-woman.asp

A lot of famous women have read her speech since years. Here, we have a well-known face, reading this famous speech: Kerry Washington

We really recommend that you listen to this touching speech. So funny and amazing!

She also has a bust in the Capitol of WDC. Here we can see an imagen of the actual First Lady: Michelle Obama, gazing at this bust. She is the first African-American woman to have a memorial bust in the U.S. Capitol.