Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman?

1. Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? • Watch the following YouTube video about the biography of Sojourner Truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1o4zkNPSAs&feature=related • Read the piece entitled “Ain’t I a Woman?” which is listed under “Literature” on your Wiki

2. Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? • Some facts about the anti-slavery/women’s rights movement: • The first women’s antislavery society was formed in 1832 by Black women in Salem, Massachusetts • In spite of this, Black women were conspicuously absent at the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 where the mainly middle class white delegates debated the motion for women's suffrage (this is the same convention where Stanton delivered her “Declaration of Sentiments” speech)

3. Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? Why was this speech so revolutionary? • It deconstructs every single major truth-claim about gender in a patriarchal slave social formation • Shows the pain of cultural processes of ‘othering’ while drawing attention to the simultaneous importance of subjectivity--of subjective pain and violence that the inflictors do not often wish to hear about or acknowledge

4. Sojourner Truth, Ain’t I a Woman? • She powerfully challenges thinking that a particular category of woman is essentially ‘this’ or essentially ‘that’ (e.g. that women are necessarily weaker than men or that enslaved Black women were not real women). • She demonstrates the historical power of a political subject who challenges ideas of subordination and thereby creates new visions.

5. Lucille Clifton, “at the cemetery….” • Access the following link to hear Lucille Clifton read her poem, “at the cemetery, walnut grove plantation, south carolina, 1989.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Shv9sRGWw The poem is also on your Wiki, listed under literature. On the same page are some analysis questions dealing with Clifton’s poem and “Ain’t I a Woman?” These are the questions referred to in today’s lesson plan.