Truly magnificent speach~

snip

It was on the second day of this meeting that Sojourner Truth gave her renowned “Ain’t I a Woman” speech. Truth was a former slave who fought not only for women’s rights, but for equality for all people. Her speech was first mentioned in the June 6, 1851 issue of the New-York Daily Tribune which reported that she “delighted her audience with some of the shrewdest remarks made during the session” (Image 7, col. 2). In the June 21, 1851 issue of the Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle, editor Marius R. Robinson, who attended the convention and served as its recording secretary, wrote that her speech was “one of the most unique and interesting….It is impossible to transfer to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience”


http://ohiohistory.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/aint-i-a-woman-sojourner-truths-famous-speech-in-the-newspapers/

The speech as recalled by Gage

"Wall, chilern, whar dar is so much racket dar must be somethin' out o' kilter. I tink dat 'twixt de niggers of de Souf and de womin at de Norf, all talkin' 'bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all dis here talkin' 'bout?"

"Dat man ober dar say dat womin needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted ober ditches, and to hab de best place everywhar. Nobody eber helps me into carriages, or ober mud-puddles, or gibs me any best place!" And raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked. 'And ain'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 ploughed, 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 it – and bear de lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern, and seen 'em mos' all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?"

"Den dey talks 'bout dis ting in de head; what dis dey call it?" ("Intellect," whispered someone near.) "Dat's it, honey. What's dat got to do wid womin's rights or nigger's 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 back dar, he say women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wan't a woman! Whar did your Christ come from?" Rolling thunder couldn't have stilled that crowd, as did those deep, wonderful tones, as she stood there with out-stretched arms and eyes of fire. Raising her voice still louder, she repeated, "Whar did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothin' to do wid Him."

more

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_I_a_Woman%3F

Beautiful, freshwest, thank you!

Last edited Sun Dec 8, 2013, 01:07 PM - Edit history (1)

Uploaded on Apr 29, 2009

Cicely Tyson performs Sojourner Truth's "Ain't that a woman?"

First Lady Michelle Obama joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other lawmakers and dignitaries on Capitol Hill on Tuesday to unveil a bust of Sojourner Truth, the 19th-century slave turned abolitionist who was also a fiery advocate for womens rights.

I wonder if students are being taught about her now?

She was a heroic figure in my public school textbooks, along with Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, abolitionists, the Underground Railway and the suffragettes.

How did we get to this in the USA, that people don't know the obvious about human rights anymore?

I wonder if students are being taught about her now?

They should be if they aren't.

All the books were edited to almost look like 'People' magazine when I last looked. My kid's American history book was vastly different from mine, and not just from the time table, but the context and content.

Mine had the root causes, the events and accomplishnents of all social movements. The labor movement, women's, slavery, civil rights, natives, so much in it.

We were required to know all of the names of the presideents, information on the issues in the elections, the wars, incidents, state capitols, different branches of the government, the economic engines in the different states, just so much. Had to be able to explain it, geography, etc. was tested or else you didn't pass.

My kid's book removed most of that, and the center of the textbook had 8 full color pages on Marilyn Monroe. Her acting career, and not even rumors about her and JFK, etc. His class took one day a week to watch flims, not educational ones. They took up more pages with the music industry and films. This was more than just one public school doing this.

Is it any wonder the kids don't know how government works, their power to make things better, are geographically clueless, don't even know who is in charge of the state they live in?

I was told years ago by a friend whose family was all military, that the change in the cirriculum was due to the DOE established by Nixon, which we're seen as good for guaranteeing the rights of kids to get an education, and other good things.

But she said that the cirriculum changes to fluff were intentional, to eliminate what the GOP saw as controversial. It was to dumb the kids down from the hard facts that we were served up before, causing young people to use the Constitution and the laws as part of how they resisted the Vietnam War. It was disenfranchisement of the mind from the bottom up.

A few years back in meetings to stop a foreign corporation from doing a lot of damage, the young people in the high school who attended it, lsaid they were not competent to even ask quesstions or state an opinion.

That's a sad state of affairs, and something that the fast talking corporatists want to see happen. Those of us who were older, had plenty to say, and evidence. it was really an illegal, irrational and anti-environmental project, that was unneccessary and a rip off of tax monies.

It was pushed through with a cabal of paid consultants and a rough shod gang who thought they'd get a job and came to bully the citizens. Despite the wide spread and well informed opposition, it was a done deal by the time it was offered for public comment.

That was when I learned that 'free speech' is just considered to be 'venting' by the public. And it went on and degraded the entire area, which sank even further into a little bit of red state hell.