Original Research Essay #2
“I Want to Keep Things Stirring” ( 1867 )
Document Type:
Speech
Document Type:
Primary source
Document Type:
Primary source
“I Want to Keep Things Stirring” ( 1867 )
Commentary
Among the great voices for civil rights in American history is Sojourner Truth, “forty years a slave and forty years free.” Truth was born into slavery and bore five children into slavery; she escaped from bondage and became (and remains) one of American history's most powerful, plainspoken advocates of equal rights, not only for black and white but for men and women, too. Born Isabella Baumfree in Hurley, New York, sometime around the end of the eighteenth century, the woman who would later name herself Sojourner Truth grew to adulthood under the perpetual barbarities of chattel slavery. Her father, when an old man, was abandoned in the wilderness by his owner and died of starvation. Separated from her family, Truth was cruelly treated and routinely beaten before being sold again and finally escaping to Canada, returning to the United States only after New York outlawed slavery in 1829. Truth went on to become an itinerant preacher, to dictate her widely read autobiography, and eventually to become one of the most influential and persuasive advocates of universal equality in the history of the United States.
In the short address presented here, delivered 9 May 1867 at the First Annual Meeting of the American Equal Rights Association, Truth reviewed her life's work but noted that much work remained to be done: “I suppose I am kept here because something remains for me to do; I suppose I am yet to help to break the chain. I have done a great deal of work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler; but men doing no more, got twice as much pay; so with the German women. They work in the field and do as much work, but do not get the pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of colored women. I want to keep the thing stirring, now that the ice is cracked.”
My friends, I am rejoiced that you are glad, but I don't know how you will feel when I get through. I come from another field—the country of the slave. They have got their liberty—so much good luck to have slavery partly destroyed; not entirely. I want it root and branch destroyed. Then we will all be free indeed. I feel that if I have to answer for the deeds done in my body just as much as a man, I have a right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. So I am for keeping the thing going while things are stirring; because if we wait till it is still, it will take a great while to get it going again. White women are a great deal smarter, and know more than colored women, while colored women do not know scarcely anything. They go out washing, which is about as high as a colored woman gets, and their men go about idle, strutting up and down; and take it all, and then scold because there is no food. I want you consider on that, chil'n. I call you chil'n; you are somebody's chil'n, and I am old enough to be mother of all that is here. I want women to have their rights. In the courts women have no right, no voice; nobody speaks for them. I wish woman to have her voice there among the pettifoggers. If it is not a fit place for women, it is unfit for men to be there.
I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going. I have been forty years a slave and forty years free and would be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. I suppose I am kept here because something remains for me to do; I suppose I am yet to help to break the chain. I have done a great deal of work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler; but men doing no more, got twice as much pay; so with the German women. They work in the field and do as much work, but do not get the pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. I suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to speak for the rights of colored women. I want to keep the thing stirring, now that the ice is cracked. What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights we shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have money enough in our own pockets; and may be you will ask us for money. But help us now until we get it. It is a good consolation to know that when we have got this battle once fought we shall not be coming to you any more. You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I know that is hard for one who has held the reins for so long to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better when it closes up again. I have been in Washington about three years, seeing about these colored people. Now colored men have the right to vote. There ought to be equal rights now more than ever, since colored people have got their freedom. I am going to talk several times while I am here; so now I will do a little singing. I have not heard any singing since I came here.
Citation for“I Want to Keep Things Stirring” ( 1867 )
Citation styles are based on the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Ed., and the MLA Style Manual, 2nd Ed..
MLA
"“I Want to Keep Things Stirring” ( 1867 )." Oxford African American Studies Center. Tue Apr 18 20:32:47 EDT 2017. <http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/ps/ps-aasc-0122>.
Chicago
"“I Want to Keep Things Stirring” ( 1867 )." Oxford African American Studies Center, http://www.oxfordaasc.com/article/ps/ps-aasc-0122 (accessed Tue Apr 18 20:32:47 EDT 2017).
