Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I A Woman?

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Recommended: African American women during the civil rights movement

On May 29, 1851, Sojourner Truth gave her most famous speech at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio. Truth, being born a slave and escaping to her freedom, was both a women’s rights activist and abolitionist. In a male-dominated society, Truth wanted to gain awareness for the inequalities of women and African Americans during the time period. She makes several claims how African Americans and women are not inferior to the white male population. By targeting those males, Truth portrays them as antagonists and thus gives the women and the African Americans something to focus their struggles on. Sojourner Truth attempts to persuade her audience to support the women’s rights movement and on subtler terms, to support the need for African American rights, through her authoritative and hortatory tone combined with the use of anaphora, juxtaposition, indisputable facts and informal and emotionally appealing diction.
Utilizing biblical references, personal experiences, and empowering words, Truth establishes an authoritative and strongly encouraging tone. In paragraph four and five, she alludes to the Bible and connects with the religious with the religious members of the audience. She explains how Christ came from a woman (the Virgin Mary) and did not need a man’s help to conceive him. This demonstrates Truth’s claim about how women were worthy of the respect and deserve to have the same rights as men. This shows that Truth is knowledgeable and understands what she preaches. Being a former slave, she understands and has experienced the hardship that comes with being a slave. She mentions these hardships in the second paragraph of her speech, saying she has “ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns… and [beared] the lash as well.”...

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...ain, she says that she can work, eat, and bear the lash as well as men. But isn’t she a woman? This logic is hard to argue against, thus using it is extremely effective.
In presenting this speech to the Women’s Convention in 1851, Sojourner Truth had to incorporate the use of rhetorical devices to support her claim and enforce it. These rhetorical devices such as anaphora, juxtaposition, and the use of informal and emotional diction all helped Truth in conveying her message that women and African Americans should have equal rights as white men. This speech proved effective, as it helped women gain rights and continues to affect future generations in the fight for equality between all races and sexes. Truth was able to create an empowering speech that remains one of the most famous speeches in the fight for both women and African American rights in the United States.

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