Book of Life - Couverture souple

Everybody's talking about black men gettin their rights, but not a word about the black woman. 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. Can any man do more than that? I can cany as much as any man, and can eat as much, too. / am as strong as any man. I have a right to have just as much as a man. If black men get their rights, and not black women theirs, the black man will be masters over their women, and it will be just as bad as it was before. Black women are coming up, and a few of the men are coming with them...
Sojourner Truth was the first black feminist. Long before it became fashionable, this strong-boned, chisel-faced, sit-up-straight woman was a lone voice speaking for the rights of black women in the nineteenth century. Her refusal to capitulate women s rights for the sake of black rights, resulted in her being challenged by an angry crowd of men to submit herself to a physical examination to prove she was a woman. Sojourner boldly bared her breasts, declaring it was their shame, not hers, to do so.
The Book of Life is a unique insight into how black women viewed the world in the nineteenth century, with a message for the woman of today: Don t just talk about getting your rights, go out and seize them!