One of the important purposes of nineteenth-century American speeches was to aid in understanding the experience of slavery from a personal point of view. In Sojourner Truth’s speech to the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851, she discusses both the abolition of slavery and women’s rights. During Truth’s life, enslaved people of African descent were denied basic human rights. At the same time, women were denied the right to vote or hold a political office. Women only had very few rights to property or earnings.
The poetic version of Truth’s speech emphasizes the painful experience of African American women who were enslaved. The phrase “13 children,” “almost all,” “cried out” and “grief” appeals to the reader’s emotions to create an aesthetic experience. Through this emotional response, the speaker conveys the central idea of the poem as being the importance of equal rights for African Americans and all women.