To the second National Woman's Suffrage Convention, held in Akron, Ohio, in 1852, and presided over by Mrs. Frances D. Gage, came Sojourner Truth.
The "Libyan Sibyl" was then in the fullness of her powers. She had been born of slave parents about 1798 in Ulster County, New York. In her later years she remembered vividly the cold, damp cellar-room in which slept the slaves of the family to which she belonged, and where she was taught by her mother to repeat the Lord's Prayer and to trust in God. When in the course of gradual emancipation she became legally free in 1827, her master refused to comply with the law and kept her in bondage. She left, but was pursued and found. Rather than have her go back, a friend paid for her services for the rest of the year. Then came an evening when, searching for one of her children who had been stolen and sold, she found herself a homeless wanderer. A Quaker family gave her lodging for the night. Subsequently she went to New York City, joined a Methodist church, and worked hard to improve her condition. Later, having decided to leave New York for a lecture tour through the East, she made a small bundle of her belongings and informed a friend that her name was no longer Isabella but Sojourner. She went on her way, speaking to people wherever she found them assembled and being entertained in many aristocratic homes. She was entirely untaught in the schools, but was witty, original, and always suggestive. By her tact and her gift of song she kept down ridicule, and by her fervor and faith she won many friends for the anti-slavery cause. As to her name she said: "And the Lord gave me Sojourner because I was to travel up an' down the land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them. Afterwards I told the Lord I wanted another name, 'cause everybody else had two names, an' the Lord gave me Truth, because I was to declare the truth to the people."
On the second day of the convention in Akron, in a corner, crouched against the wall, sat this woman of care, her elbows resting on her knees, and her chin resting upon her broad, hard palms.[134] In the intermission she was employed in selling "The Life of Sojourner Truth." From time to time came to the presiding officer the request, "Don't let her speak; it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with abolition and niggers, and we shall be utterly denounced." Gradually, however, the meeting waxed warm. Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Universalist preachers had come to hear and discuss the resolutions presented. One argued the superiority of the male intellect, another the sin of Eve, and the women, most of whom did not "speak in meeting," were becoming filled with dismay. Then slowly from her seat in the corner rose Sojourner Truth, who till now had scarcely lifted her head. Slowly and solemnly to the front she moved, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned her great, speaking eyes upon the chair. Mrs. Gage, quite equal to the occasion, stepped forward and announced "Sojourner Truth," and begged the audience to be silent a few minutes. "The tumult subsided at once, and every eye was fixed on this almost Amazon form, which stood nearly six feet high, head erect, and eye piercing the upper air, like one in a dream." At her first word there was a profound hush. She spoke in deep tones, which, though not loud, reached every ear in the house, and even the throng at the doors and windows. To one man who had ridiculed the general helplessness of woman, her needing to be assisted into carriages and to be given the best place everywhere, she said, "Nobody eber helped me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gibs me any best place"; and raising herself to her full height, with a voice pitched like rolling thunder, she asked, "And a'n't I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm." And she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing her tremendous muscular power. "I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me—and a'n't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man, when I could get it, and bear de lash as well—and a'n't I a woman? I have borne five chilern and seen 'em mos' all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother's grief, none but Jesus heard—and a'n't I a woman?... Dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head—what dis dey call it?" "Intellect," said some one near. "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do with women's rights or niggers' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint and yourn holds a quart, wouldn't ye be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?" And she pointed her significant finger and sent a keen glance at the minister who had made the argument. The cheering was long and loud. "Den dat little man in black dar, he say women can't have as much rights as man, 'cause Christ wa'n't a woman. But whar did Christ come from?" Rolling thunder could not have stilled that crowd as did those deep, wonderful tones as the woman stood there with her outstretched arms and her eyes of fire. Raising her voice she repeated, "Whar did Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with Him." Turning to another objector, she took up the defense of Eve. She was pointed and witty, solemn and serious at will, and at almost every sentence awoke deafening applause; and she ended by asserting, "If de fust woman God made was strong enough to turn the world upside down, all alone, dese togedder,"—and she glanced over the audience—"ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again, and now dey is askin' to do it, de men better let 'em."
"Amid roars of applause," wrote Mrs. Gage, "she returned to her corner, leaving more than one of us with streaming eyes and hearts beating with gratitude." Thus, as so frequently happened, Sojourner Truth turned a difficult situation into splendid victory. She not only made an eloquent plea for the slave, but placing herself upon the broadest principles of humanity, she saved the day for woman suffrage as well.
Footnote 121: [(return)]
Adams: Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery, 93.
Footnote 122: [(return)]
Freedom's Journal, November 2, 1827, quoted by Walker.
Footnote 123: [(return)]
Anti-Slavery Picknick, 105-107.
Footnote 124: [(return)]
They are fully recorded in Garrison's Thoughts on African Colonization.
Footnote 125: [(return)]
John W. Cromwell: The Early Negro Convention Movement.
Footnote 126: [(return)]
Ibid., 5.