Rhetoric and Religion in Sojourner Truth's and Frederick Douglass’s Speeches Anonymous College

Despite being one-hundred-fifty years old, Frederick Douglass’s speech “The Hypocrisy of American Slavery” and Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” have survived the tests of history as some of the most influential speeches of their time. Both speeches are loaded with poignant statements, stunning uses of rhetoric, and extremely effective persuasive methods. Due to the fact that Truth and Douglass have vastly different appearances, experiences, and beliefs from their audiences of white Christians, Truth and Douglass are forced to make intentional allusions to Christianity and the Bible in an attempt to appeal to the only commonality between them: the emotionally-charged topic of religion. The use of religion to appeal to the audience’s pathos and logos also exposes the hypocritical and cruel racism and sexism that many white Christians exhibited and excused.

Truth uses strong logos throughout her speech to reason with her audience, all while evoking religious figures and stories in order to appeal to the Christianity that ties her with the audience. Truth argues, “Dat little man in black dar, he say women can’t have as much rights as men, cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Whar did your Christ come from? Whar did your Christ come...