It was May of 1851 when 54-year-old Sojourner Truth took the stage. Truth, who would become one of the most famous women of any race of the nineteenth century, spoke her personal testimony to the mostly white audience at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. She was the only speaker who had been enslaved and the room was captivated by her height, forthrightness, and passion.
In the audience that day was Marius Robinson, a secretary for the convention who was speedily taking notes. His account of Truth's speech was published in the abolitionist newspaper The Anti-Slavery Bugle three weeks later. One of the more powerful moments of the speech as recorded by Robinson was when she said, "I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the Bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again." Robinson wrote that Truth concluded her speech with, "But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on ...