Sojourner Truth single-handedly rescued the Akron women’s meeting from the disruptive jeers of hostile men. Of all the women attending the gathering, she alone was able to answer aggressively the male supremacist arguments of the boisterous provocateurs. Possessing an undeniable charisma and powerful oratorical abilities, Sojourner Truth tore down the claims that female weakness was incompatible with suffrage—and she did this with irrefutable logic. The leader of the provocateurs had argued that it was ridiculous for women to desire the vote, since they could not even walk over a puddle or get into a carriage without the help of a man. Sojourner Truth pointed out with compelling simplicity that she herself had never been helped over mud puddles or into carriages. “And ain’t I a woman?” With a voice like “rolling thunder,” she said, “Look at me! Look at my arm,” and rolled up her sleeve to reveal the “tremendous muscular power” of her arm.

I have ploughed, 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 it—and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

Even the most radical white abolitionists, basing their opposition to slavery on moral and humanitarian grounds, failed to understand that the rapidly developing capitalism of the North was also an oppressive system. They viewed slavery as a detestable and inhuman institution, an archaic transgression of justice. But they did not recognize that the white worker in the North, his or her status as “free” laborer notwithstanding, was no different from the enslaved “worker” in the South: both were victims of economic exploitation. [...]