Sojourner Truth: An Eloquent Speech 'Ain' T I A Woman

Yuqi Wang

African American Literature

10/25/15

The African Americans, one of the largest ethnic minority in American, has suffered oppression and discrimination since the prosperity of monstrous slavery；however, heroes who were known to all like Louis Armstrong, Michael Jackson, or Kobe Bryant achieved splendid success in different fields, past and present, and undeniably, their great achievements challenge the old authority that white is always superior and shift the society’s negative attitude towards black people. Works that can be subsumed in to slavery-related topic, like autobiography written by black people who once suffered torture under oppression or eloquent speech delivered by an abolitionist who had struggling for ending slavery

Truth reveals a strong and self-reliant black woman for audience and recounts outright about the discriminatory treatments suffered by black people; heaps of points mentioned in this speech have connection with other work that we have studied because of the comparable and opposite sentiments they presented. Sojourner Truth was born names Isabella Baumfree in slavery in New York State, yet she chose to go by Sojourner Truth after gaining her freedom in 1826. For the case about recovering her 5 years old son, Truth became the first black women that against a white man on court successfully. Accordingly, she delivered the speech “Ain’t I a Woman” at the Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in 1851，and by repeatedly ask her question “Ain’t I a Woman," Sojourner Truth points to all of the agitation, and tells the audience that society is massed up by current system. People always said that heroes are individuals who say what they think when we ourselves lack the courage to say it; hence, as not only an anti-slavery speaker but a feminist who never hesitated to voice for women, Sojourner Truth truly deserves our admiration