An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

ordeal of slavery managed to survive with sufficient strength, poise, and
self-confidence to become a public presence over the long term.” 50
Truth, like other Black feminist icons such as Anna Julia Cooper,
challenged the racial and gender order, and centered Black women’s voices
in an attempt to create liberation not just “from a sexist social order” that
white women claimed, but for “racial equality and the women’s rights
movement.” 51 Still, Truth’s most iconic achievement remains her “Ain’t I a
Woman?” speech.
The ironic thing about Truth’s speech is that there are two versions,
which Nell Irvin Painter discovered in researching her 1996 book on Truth.
The original speech was given in 1851, and was summarized by Truth’s
friend, Reverend Marius Robinson. The “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech that has
been valorized within US feminist history emerged in 1863 thanks to a
white abolitionist, Frances Dana Barker Gage. Gage altered the speech to
make it seem more authentically and linguistically Black. However, we now
know that Black American language speech patterns differ from one
another by region, and the speaking style of Truth in Gage’s version is that
of a southern Black woman, not a New York State resident, as Truth was. It
is important to acknowledge the historical facts. However, I still think it’s
important to understand both speeches, and to extract as much as we can in
order to understand the historical context but also the ways people today
might utilize this speech for their own purposes. I will use the one
summarized by Reverend Robinson.
Truth walked up to the podium and asked the president if she could say a
few words. She then stated:
I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do
as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and
chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have
heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any
man, and can eat much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man
that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if woman have a pint and
a quart—why can’t she have her little pint full? 52
In this version, Truth did not ask, “Ain’t I a woman?” but did proclaim,
“I am a woman’s rights.” This phrase is interesting. She asserts herself as a
formerly enslaved Black woman at the center of the movement for Black