Poem by Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

AIN'T I A WOMEN?

That man over there say
     a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
     and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
     or over mud puddles
     or gives me a best place...

And ain't I a woman?
     Look at me
Look at my arm!
     I have plowed and planted
and gathered into barns
     and no man could head me...

And ain't I a woman?
     I could work as much
and eat as much as a man — 
     when I could get to it — 
and bear the lash as well
     and ain't I a woman?


I have born 13 children
     and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother's grief
     none but Jesus heard me...

And ain't I a woman?
     that little man in black there say
a woman can't have as much rights as a man
     cause Christ wasn't a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
     From God and a woman!
Man had nothing to do with him!
     If the first woman God ever made
was strong enough to turn the world
     upside down, all alone
together women ought to be able to turn it
     rightside up again.

Copyright © Sojourner Truth, 1852 & Erlene Stetson

There is no exact copy of the speech Sojourner Truth gave at the Women's rights Convention in Akron Ohio, in 1852. The poem above was adapted to the poetic format by Erelene Stetson from copy found in Sojourner, God's Faithful Pilgrim by Arthur Huff Fauset, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1938).

Version of Speech as printed in Anti-Slavery Bugle, June 21 1851.