From my notes July 2009 . . . .

For Sojourner Truth, both racism and sexism mediated against the democracy with which Americans has become comfortable


I tink dat ‘twixt de niggers of de Souf and de women at de Norf all a talkin’ ‘bout rights, de white men will be in a fix pretty soon

Her life stood in stark contrast to that of most 19th Century white American women. She, like most black women of that time, plowed, planted and hoed, did as much work as a man, endured the brutal punishment meted out by slaveholders, their wives and overseers, and fulfilled her ordained role of motherhood.

For antebellum black women – sexism was one out of three constraints.
1. Black in a white society
2. slave in a free society
3. woman in a society ruled by men

Most were slaves, and as such, denied the privilege enjoyed by white feminists—of say, theorizing about bondage—for they were indeed owned by someone else.

They were slaves because they were African and Black in skin color – color being the absolute determinant of class in antebellum America.

Absolute power for the master meant absolute dependency for the slave—“the dependency not of a developing child – but of the perpetual child.”

WHITES WROTE MOST OF ANTEBELLUM AMERICA’S RECORDS AND BLACK MEN WROTE JUST ABOUT ALL OF THE ANTEBELLUM RECORDS LEFT BY BLACKS