Sojourner Truth’s Strategic Use of Humor

Today is the 161st anniversary of Sojourner Truth’s speech to the Woman’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. Though commonly known as the “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, Truth probably never said those words. But the speech that she more likely delivered included several excellent examples of the strategic use of humor to achieve persuasive goals. In advocating for her rights as a Black woman, Truth met resistance not only from anti-abolitionists, but also from many white women actively engaged in the early women’s rights movement.

As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint and man a quart—why cant she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much,—for we cant take more than our pint’ll hold.

Truth demonstrated that her intellect is equal to that of a man’s, not by denying the offending claim, but by subverting it. She ironically accepted her opponents’ claim though the use of an analogy of measurement and comically reassured her audience that since women lack intellectual capacity, men have no need to fear them. By turning the hypothetical man’s argument against him, Truth demonstrated that she was far smarter than those who opposed equality.

I cant 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.

Without really conceding the argument that Eve caused man to sin, Truth asks that women be given equal rights in order to make up for that mistake. she couches this request in humor to make it more difficult for an ecclesiastical rebuttal.

And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and woman who bore him. Man, where is your part?

Again, Truth displayed humor and wisdom telling her audience that human men played no part in the creation of Jesus. Based on these arguments, if there is to be any inequality, it is the women who should be full citizens and not the men.

The use of humor certainly carries risk. The audience may not understand that the speaker was trying to employ strategic humor. In Truth’s case, the humor may have been misunderstood by the mostly white audience. As Nell Irvin Painter points out in her excellent biography of Sojourner Truth, Delivered straight, these lines would never have elicited cheers and applause from her mostly white audiences. She spoke of sinful whites and vengeful blacks, but her humor let her listeners exempt themselves. They did not hear wrath against whites, but against the advocates of slavery. It is understandable, no doubt, that Truth’s audiences, who wanted so much to love this old black woman who had been a slave, found it difficult to fathom the depths of her bitterness.”

Rhetorical humor can open spaces of discourse otherwise closed, but it can also mask challenging beliefs. Today it is good to remember its use by a hero of social change in America.