Sojourer Truth / Ain´s I a Woman

Ain’t I a Woman? 

by Sojourner Truth

That man over there say
    a woman needs to be helped into carriages
and lifted over ditches
    and to have the best place everywhere.
Nobody ever helped me into carriages
    or over mud puddles
        or gives me a best place. . . .

And ain’t I a woman?
    Look at me
Look at my arm!
    I have plowed 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 to it—
and bear the lash as well
    and ain’t I a woman?
I have borne 13 children
    and seen most all sold into slavery
and when I cried out a mother’s grief
    none but Jesus heard me . . .
and ain’t I a woman?
    that little man in black there say
a woman can’t have as much rights as a man
    cause Christ wasn’t a woman
Where did your Christ come from?
    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
together women ought to be able to turn it
    rightside up again.