AIN'T I A WOMAN?
Created on 11/06/2024Latest update on 15/07/2024
Artist: Sojourner Truth
Author: Sojourner Truth
Year: 1851
Sojourner Truth was born in slavery in 1797 as Isabella Baumfree on the estate of her master, Colonel Johannes Hardenburgh, planter of Dutch descent. She endured it all. Was frequently sold, beaten up and chain-forced breeding children that were systematically taken away from her. When in 1827 her State of New York abolished slavery, that did not seem to change a bit on her situation as a black woman. So she changed her name and got engaged in emancipation actions, both for blacks and for women. She knew how to phrase her experience and this one speech made history, first held at a Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851 and inspired by a Quaker abolitionist slugline: Am I not a woman and a sister?
Covers:
- 1977:
New Harmony Sisterhood Band [as Sojourner Truth with words based on her famous speech; that's what all 'covers' here have in common; the lyrics make the link; the music, which is always different, is less important ; opens their album ...And Ain't I A Woman?]
- 1992:
Rory Block [album title track]
- 1994:
Katy Moffatt [as Sojourner Truth (Ain't I A Woman) on album Midnight Radio, again same storyline, different (blues)tune]
- 1999:
Maya Angelou [spoken word in musical Civil War]
- 2011:
Ayanna Witter-Johnson [close to reciting Sojourner's speech literally]
- 2012:
Avery Sharp [vocal: Jeri Brown; on concept album Sojourner Truth]
