Presenting… Elena Monteiro, winner of the 4th Annual Frederick Douglass Public Speaking Competition, with her performance of “Ain’t I a Woman?”
This speech, delivered extemporaneously, by Sojourner Truth (1797–1883), born into slavery in New York State. Some time after gaining her freedom in 1827, she became a well known anti-slavery speaker. Her speech was delivered at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, in 1851, and did not originally have a title.