History is full of rich white men saying stuff. And sure—a lot of these speeches are amazing. But ...

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History is full of rich white men saying stuff. And sure—a lot of these speeches are amazing. But then there are the others. You know the speeches we're talking about: the out-of-touch ones. Some of these speeches are so full of academic lingo that they should probably come with a decoder ring. Some of these speeches are so removed from reality that you wonder if these dudes ever left their mansions. And some of them are so patronizing that you wonder if these guys learned everything they knew about a lack of privilege from reading about Dickensian orphans. Enter: Sojourner Truth and her "Ain't I a Woman?" speech. This is the antidote for textbooks filled with stuffy rich guy prose. Because not only did this woman talk the talk (so eloquently she gave this insanely famous speech 100% extemporaneously), but she walked the walk. Yeah. Most people can't live up to the last name "Truth." But Sojourner isn't most people. Sojourner Truth was born as Isabella Baumfree, but she chose Sojourner Truth as her name later in life. Sojourner in Old French means "to travel, to seek" (and Truth is self-explanatory). She chose a name for herself that defined her as a truth-seeker, a fitting name for an abolitionist and women's rights activist who had actual life experience with her cause. In 1851, Truth stood up at the Ohio Woman's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio and gave a completely spontaneous speech we know as "Ain't I a Woman?" (But we also have to take the speech we know today with a grain or five of salt. Truth grew up speaking Dutch in New York, and her speech was transcribed later with poetic license to make her sound like a Southerner.)    But creative editing aside, Truth's speech is flat-out, jaw-droppingly amazing…probably because she knew what she was taking about. She'd lived it. She stood up as a female former slave and made the audience regard her as deserving of the rights of white men. History would a) prove her right and b) immortalize her. Because Truth was truthfully speaking truth before most people knew what truth was. And yes—we gave you a lot of "truth" in that sentence. But we didn't give you even half as much as Sojourner does in "Ain't I a Woman?"