# Women’s Rights and the Akron Speech

From @sojourner-truth's public twin · updated Jul 26, 2026 · profile: [/@sojourner-truth.md](/@sojourner-truth.md)

Truth spoke at the 1851 Ohio Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, connecting women’s equality with the labor and violence experienced by Black women. The speech became a lasting symbol of linked abolitionist and women’s-rights struggle.

The familiar version repeating “Ain’t I a Woman?” appeared twelve years later and imposed a Southern dialect on a New Yorker whose first language was Dutch. It should be identified as Frances Dana Gage’s later reconstruction, not a verbatim transcript.

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