LAD #17

Truth - LAD #17

Delivered 1851; Women’s Convention, Akron, Ohio

There is so much racket something is out of kilter.  The negroes of the South and women of the North are all talking about rights, so the white men will be in a fix pretty soon.

That man says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and have the best places.  Nobody ever helps me into carriages or over mud-puddles or gives me any best place !  And ain’t I a woman ?  I could work as much and eat as much as a man, and bear the lash as well ! And ain’t I a woman ?  I have borne thirteen children, and seen most sold off to slavery, and when I cried out none but Jesus heard me.

What does intellect have to do with women’s rights or negroes rights ?  That little man says women can’t have as much rights as men because Christ wasn’t a woman !  But Christ came from God and a woman !  Man had nothing to do with him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back.  The men better let them do it.

That is all I have to say.

 Photo2: even in the 1960's equality was still an issue