Tag: Women’s Rights

Lucy Col­man Advoc­ated for Abol­i­tion, Suf­frage, and Free­thought

Lucy Col­man Advoc­ated for Abol­i­tion, Suf­frage, and Free­thought

by Laura Nich­ols

(Reprinted from the Democrat and Chronicle, January 18, 2026)

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/democrat-chronicle/20260118/282699053525297

The web­site free­thoughtrail.org says she was born in Stur­bridge, Mas­sachu­setts, in 1817, and worked as a school­teacher. At age 18, she mar­ried John Maubry Davis, and they moved to Boston. He died of con­sump­tion in 1841. Accord­ing to women­his­toryb­log.com, “In 1843, Lucy mar­ried Luther Cole­man (she later changed the spelling of her mar­ried name to Col­man).” They moved to Rochester, and their daugh­ter, Ger­trude, was born about 1845. “Moth­er­hood brought Col­man’s atten­tion to the issue of women’s rights,” the blog says. “She began to ask why mar­ried women and moth­ers had so few rights, and why women were depend­ent on the good­will of their hus­bands for what freedoms they had.” She also befriended Rochester abol­i­tion­ist Amy Post and advoc­ated for eman­cip­a­tion of the slaves. By 1852 she had renounced Chris­tian­ity because of churches’ com­pli­city with slavery.

Cole­man’s hus­band was killed in 1854 while work­ing at the New York Cent­ral Rail­road, which she blamed on the com­pany’s unwill­ing­ness to spend money on repairs. She was hired after­ward as a teacher in a segreg­ated “colored school,” where Col­man met Susan B. Anthony. Accord­ing to the blog, at the state teach­ers con­ven­tion, she spoke out against cor­poral pun­ish­ment in schools, and she and Anthony decried the unequal salar­ies of male and female teach­ers. Dis­gus­ted with segreg­a­tion, Col­man “lob­bied par­ents to with­draw their chil­dren, caus­ing the school to close and los­ing her job in the pro­cess. By 1856, Rochester was provid­ing edu­ca­tion for both white and black chil­dren.”

Between 1856 and 1860, she became an abol­i­tion­ist lec­turer in Ohio, Iowa and Michigan and occa­sion­ally wrote for the anti­s­lavery news­pa­per The Lib­er­ator. She par­ti­cip­ated in an 1858 protest against cap­ital pun­ish­ment led by Anthony and Fre­d­er­ick Dou­glass and in an 1859 peti­tion drive for New York women’s right to vote. In May 1863, Col­man was one of the sec­ret­ar­ies at the Women’s National Loyal League, which con­duc­ted the largest peti­tion drive in U.S. his­tory at that point, with 400,000 sig­na­tures, to pro­mote a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment to abol­ish slavery. In 1864 and 1865, Col­man worked at a Black orphan asylum in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., and taught and served as a super­in­tend­ent in schools in Wash­ing­ton and Arling­ton, Vir­ginia, to help former slaves. Col­man arranged a meet­ing between Sojourner Truth and Pres­id­ent Abra­ham Lin­coln on Oct. 29, 1864, and accom­pan­ied Truth.

About 1870, Col­man joined her sis­ter in Syra­cuse. “Dur­ing this time, Col­man whole­heartedly embraced free­thought, a philo­soph­ical view­point that opin­ions or beliefs should be based on sci­ence, logic and reason, and should not be derived from reli­gion, author­ity, gov­ern­ment or dogma,” the blog says. She spoke often at con­ven­tions and wrote columns for a free­thought journal as well as writ­ing her mem­oir.

What did Sojourner Truth really say at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 28, 1851?

What did Sojourner Truth really say at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio on May 28, 1851?

Historical Mystery: Read these two accounts of Truth’s speech and analyze their reliability* using the sourcing form. Then answer the question: Did Sojourner Truth really utter the famous phrase: “Ar’n’t I a woman?”

**Reliable: Historians use “reliable” to mean that a source is the most accurate or honest depiction or account of something from the past.

Version 1, written by Reporter, Marius Robinson, for Salem Anti-Slavery Bugle in June 21, 1851:

One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the Convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gestures, and listened to her strong and truthful tones…May I say a few words? Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded: “I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman’s rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal; I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now…The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don’t know what to do. Why children, if you have woman’s rights give it to her and you will feel better…But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, and he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.”

Version 2, written April 23, 1863 for the New York Independent by Frances Dana Gage, who had presided over the convention:

“Well, chillen, whar dar’s so much racket dar must be som’ting out o’ kilter. I tink dat, ‘twixt the niggers of de South and de women at de Norf, all a-talking ‘bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon…Dat man over dar say dat woman needs to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches…Nobody eber helps me into carriages or ober mud-puddles, or gives me any best place;” and, raising herself to her full height, and her voice to a pitch like rolling thunder, she asked, “And ar’n’t I a woman? Look at me. Look at my arm,” and she bared her right arm to the shoulder, showing its tremendous muscular power, “I have plowed and planted and gathered into barns, and no man can head me—and ar’n’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man, (when I could get it,) and bear de lash as well—and ar’n’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chillen and seen ‘em mos’ all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard—and ar’n’t I a woman?”

 Version 1Version 2
What is the document?  
Context:  
What event is it describing and when did that event take place?  
When was the account written?  
Text:  
How are these two accounts similar (facts, tone, etc.)?  
How are they different?      
Subtext:  
Who wrote the document?  
Are there any clues about who the author was?  
Based on your comparison of the sources, what do you think the author’s purposes might have been?  
What more do you wish you knew so that you could determine which source is most reliable?  

Analysis: Did Sojourner Truth really utter the famous phrase: “Ar’n’t I a woman?” Explain your answer.