Sojourner's Truth
HISTORY This Week
The HISTORY® Channel | Back Pocket Studios
4.5 • 4.2K Ratings
🗓️ 24 May 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
May 29, 1851. Akron, Ohio’s Old Stone Church is packed to the brim. It's the second day of a big convention on women's rights. Hundreds of activists are there, but when one of them, Sojourner Truth, takes the floor, she stands out. Truth is a formerly enslaved woman, and her speech reminds the crowd that women’s rights includes the rights of working women, of Black women, and of women who are now enslaved. But this speech would be manipulated throughout history, and Truth herself boiled down to a fictionalized slogan. How did this feminist and anti-slavery activist get turned into a symbol? And what parts of the person got lost in that process? Who was Truth, really?
Special thanks to our guest, Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The History Channel, original podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | History this week, May 29, 1851. |
| 0:14.0 | I'm Sally Helm. |
| 0:20.0 | The Old Stone Church in Akron, Ohio |
| 0:23.0 | has a row of columns out front |
| 0:25.0 | and a clock tower rising up above the roof, |
| 0:28.0 | topped by a statue of an angel blowing a bugle. |
| 0:32.0 | Today, hundreds of men and women |
| 0:35.0 | climb the steps of the church |
| 0:37.0 | and pack themselves into the sanctuary. |
| 0:39.0 | It's the second day of a big convention on women's rights. |
| 0:43.0 | Yesterday, the attendees read out some resolutions |
| 0:46.0 | on the topic in the morning, |
| 0:48.0 | debated them in the afternoon, |
| 0:50.0 | and adjourned in the evening with a song about Ohio. |
| 0:53.0 | This morning, they reconvene at nine o'clock |
| 0:57.0 | to continue their consideration of the rights, duties, |
| 1:00.0 | and relations of women. |
| 1:02.0 | The room is stifling a hot. |
| 1:06.0 | One prominent newspaper editor can't find anywhere to sit |
| 1:09.0 | except the pulpit steps. |
| 1:11.0 | It opens with the usual fare, |
... |
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