Who Can Speak?

In 1858 Sojourner Truth was making a speech in rural Indiana when proslavery members challenged her to strip to the waist to prove that she was a woman.  Protocol of the time dictated that ‘ladies’ were never to publically address a crowd. Black women were not consider ‘ladies,’ or rather members of the cult of true womanhood, anyway. 

At the close of the meeting, Dr. T. W. Strain, the mouthpiece of the slave Democracy, requested the large congregation to ‘hold on,’ and stated that a doubt existed in the minds of many persons present respecting the sex of the speaker, and that it was his impression that a majority of them believed the speaker to be a man.  The doctor demanded that Sojourner submit her breast to the inspection of some of the ladies present, that the doubt might be removed by their testimony.  There was a large number of ladies present, who appeared to be ashamed and indignant at such a proposition. 

Confusion and uproar ensured, which was soon suppressed by Sojourner, who, immediately rising, asked them why they suspected her to be a man. The Democracy answered, “Your voice is not the voice of a woman, it is the voice of a man, and we believe you are a man.” Strain called for a vote.  Sojourner told them that her breasts had suckled many a white babe, to the exclusion of her own offspring and she quietly asked them, as she disrobed her bosom, if they, too wish to suck! She told them that she would show her breast to the whole congregation; that it was not to her shame that she uncovered her breast before them, but to their shame.

Sojourner Truth: A Life , A Symbol by Nel Irvin Pointer, 

We Are Your Sisters Edited by Dorothy Sterling