Democratic Women of Pitt County

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“I am a woman’s rights.”

On May 29, 1851, Sojourner Truth delivered her most famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron. Even 175 years later, her words remain a powerful reminder of how Black women have had to navigate both racism and sexism, and have had to consistently assert their place in abolitionist and suffragist movements.

Born Isabella Baumfree to enslaved parents in a Dutch-speaking county of New York, Truth didn't learn English until she was sold to a new family at age 9. She escaped slavery with her daughter in 1826 and later took an enslaver to court to recover her son, becoming one of the first Black people to win a legal case against a White person in the United States.

After securing her family's freedom, she became a preacher and advocate for abolition and women's rights. In 1843, she renamed herself Sojourner Truth and set out to travel and spread her message.

Truth never learned to read or write, so we only have others' accounts of her speeches. The most well-known version of "Ain't I a Woman?" comes from Frances Dana Barker Gage, one of the convention's organizers, who published her recollection of the speech in 1863, more than a decade later. An earlier account by Marius Robinson, Truth's friend and fellow attendee, was printed in the Anti-Slavery Bugle one month after the convention. Robinson's version does not include the exaggerated accent in Gage's retelling, nor the phrase "ain't I a woman" itself.

But the message is clear across both accounts. Truth spoke directly to the ways Black women were being excluded from both fights — the suffragist movement and the abolitionist movement — a pattern of erasure that Black women would continue to face long after her passing.

✍️: Gabby Gladny, reporting fellow
📸: Gado/Getty Images