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10 Greatest Speeches


Sojourner Truth 29 May 1851,


Woman’s Rights Convention, Akron, Ohio


What was the big deal? Born a slave in 1797, Isabella Baumfree, who later changed her name to Sojourner Truth, would become one of the most powerful advocates for human rights in the nineteenth century. Her speech at the Woman’s Right Convention in 1851 is not without controversy, as there are two diff erent versions as to what she said. However, the one that is widely attributed to her uses the repeated line ‘ain’t I a woman’, the


name by which the speech is commonly known. In a time when the concept of women’s rights was not universally accepted, Sojourner Truth was


a real pioneer to lecture about the issue, particularly for a black woman to address a largely white audience. It was a ground-breaking speech and cemented the legacy of Truth in the history of the global human rights movement. As she told the convention: “T at man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and liſt ed over ditches, and to have 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?”


Impact rating: 7/10


Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.


T en that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause


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