On Being Authentic: Sojourner Truth & Queen Elizabeth I
Authenticity. What does it even mean to be authentic? The courage to be yourself means speaking from the heart. Opening up to others is the way to be authentic and establish genuine lines of communication. In Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I A Woman?" speech delivered at the Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Georgia (1851), she shares: "...Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman?" In her speech to the troops at Tilbury (August 9, 1588) Queen Elizabeth I says, "I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too."