Blog Post #4

Ain't I a Woman?

Wow!  This short speech by Sojourner Truth is by far one of my favorite passages that we have read all semester.  Truth's ability to take such a controversial topic at the time, women's rights, and transform it into a simple matter of facts is amazing.  "That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere.  Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?"  This common societal stereotype that depict women as helpless and fragile is completely torn down through the simple truth that women slaves were not treated in such ways and often did the same work that men did.  Also, I thought it was comical how she used the example that God and woman made Christ and that man had no part in the equation to show how important women are.   

Sojourner Truth's feisty attitude when dealing with civil rights gives women and men an inspirational figure to aspire to.  In the biography on Sojourner Truth it mentions that Truth had successfully desegregated the streetcars in Washington D.C. 100 years before Rosa Parks sparked the civil rights movement with the bus boycott in Alabama.   This fact fascinated me because throughout my educational career with being a social studies concentration, I have never learned of Sojourner Truth accomplishing such a task but I have learned of Rosa Parks.  Therefore, I have included a link for YouTube on the Rosa Parks Interview.  I find this interview significant because it addresses a common myth of the Rosa Parks story which is that she sat in the white section of the bus which is untrue.  Also, I find it interesting that the person she was asked to move for was a white man who clearly didn't find this elderly lady fragile enough to remain seated however if it was a white woman, she would not have been asked to move.  What Rosa Parks did relates directly to Sojourner Truth's speech about the image of a weak and helpless woman.  Rosa Parks was clearly strong enough to not only stand her ground against the male bus driver and passenger, but to also represent a perfect example for males and females to stand their ground on racial discrimination.  

Rosa Parks at the age the provoked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.