Women Abolitionists in the 19th Century

Weld and Truth: Speaking Their Minds
Angelina Grimke Weld and Sojourner Truth were two 19th century women who spoke up for abolition. Weld was a white Southerner; Truth was a runaway slave who became an itinerant preacher. Both women supported women’s rights and an end to slavery. One was white and from a wealthy family, another was black and poor—but both shared the same spirit and ideas, and both had seen slavery up close and personally. While Truth experienced it, Weld witnessed it, and the experiences of each transformed them and informed their speeches—Weld’s speech in Philadelphia in 1838 and Sojourner’s speech in 1851 in Akron at the Women’s Rights Convention.
The fact that both of them were women was an obstacle enough in 19th century America. It was still a man’s world—but the women population was coming together to fight some of the evils of the day that they perceived and wanted to end. They wanted to have the right to vote; they wanted to end slavery; they wanted to stop the abuse of alcohol and bring about a soberer America. The main issue for Weld was an end to slavery; the main issue for Truth was women’s rights. Weld wanted everyone to know what it was like to be a slave in the South. The people in the North had no idea—but she did: she had witnessed it growing up. Truth wanted people to see why women should be given the chance to make the world better: the first woman had turned “the world upside down all alone” and now the women of her era wanted the opportunity to “turn it back and get it right side up again!” (Truth, 1851). Truth, however, faced another obstacle: she lacked a formal education. Her manner of speaking, though, had an irresistible spirit that was animated by a colloquial, down-to-earth way of cutting through the clouds of nonsense and getting right to the heart of the matter. Weld, too, was an outsider in her own way. Though born free and of the same race as the white ruling class, she was still a woman and thus was viewed as not having a place in public debates. She was typically not welcomed at conventions and was in fact the first woman to ever testify before Congress, where she talked about the horrors of slavery (Ham, 2016). She had to overcome the obstacle of bias and prejudice to deliver her last public speech in Pennsylvania, where she exhorted her listeners to oppose the spirit of slavery. She urged them to educate themselves on the horrors of slavery: “To work as we should in this cause, we must know what Slavery is. Let me urge you then to buy the books which have been written on this subject and read them, and then lend them to your neighbors” (Weld, 1838).
Weld connected with her audience by often quoting the Bible and using religious imagery to convey the importance and significance of her message. For example, she started off her speech, asking like John the Baptist, “What came ye out for to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” (Weld, 1838). Later she quotes the Book of Samuel after describing how she felt when she knew she had to describe the horrors of slavery to get people to end the practice: “The language of my soul was, "Oh tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon!” (Weld, 1838).
Truth used subtler speech to make her points. She sounded like someone who would have been your next door neighbor, quietly bringing home her point in an eloquent but simple way: “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me!” (Truth, 1851). Sure, she was a woman—but she was also black—and that was her point. Society was not interested in helping black people; and that needed to change. She struck home at the point that women did have a place in society—even black women—because the role of woman in the Incarnation and in Redemption was undeniable: “Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him!” (Truth, 1851). So for men to say that women had no place having a vote or calling publicly for an end to slavery was hypocritical. She told it like it was without fancying up her language or dressing her words up in intellectualisms. She used her own vernacular and called a spade a spade exactly as she wanted to do.
Two lessons I learned from these examples that could be of value to me for communications in my professional life are: a) don’t be afraid to speak in the manner that I am most comfortable with—just as Truth did, and b) speak from experience—like Weld did. Truth spoke in the best way she knew how—without trying to fool anybody about her learning and without trying to sound like others. She spoke like herself and was herself—and that was what made her speech so honest and appealing. She was speaking her mind from her heart and without any pretension. Weld showed that when one has a message the best way to deliver it is to draw upon one’s own experiences to show why that message is meaningful and important. Weld did not shy away from communicating what she saw. She made it her mission to deliver the image of slavery to the public so that they could share in her experience, feel the horror, and finally and firmly decide to make a change. I could use both of these approaches in my professional speaking to really connect with my audience and leave an impact and a mark that could be felt for days.
References
Ham, B. (2016). Famous speech Friday. Retrieved from
http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com/2016/09/famous-speech-friday-angelina-grimkes.html
Truth, S. (1851). Ain’t I a woman? Retrieved from
https://www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm
Weld, A. G. (1838). Speech at Pennsylvania Hall. Retrieved from
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/grimke.html