d down; and when the women come home, they ask for
their money and take it all, and then scold because there is no
food. I want you to consider on that, chil'n. I call you chil'n;
you are somebody's chil'n, and I am old enough to be mother of
all that is here. I want women to have their rights. In the
courts women have no right, no voice; nobody speaks for them. I
wish woman to have her voice there among the pettifoggers. If it
is not a fit place for women, it is unfit for men to be there.

I am above eighty years old; it is about time for me to be going.
I have been forty years a slave and forty years free, and would
be here forty years more to have equal rights for all. I suppose
I am kept here because something remains for me to do; I suppose
I am yet to help to break the chain. I have done a great deal of
work; as much as a man, but did not get so much pay. I used to
work in the field and bind grain, keeping up with the cradler;
but men doing no more, got twice as much pay; so with the German
women. They work in the field and do as much work, but do not get
the pay. We do as much, we eat as much, we want as much. I
suppose I am about the only colored woman that goes about to
speak for the rights of the colored women. I want to keep the
thing stirring, now that the ice is cracked. What we want is a
little money. You men know that you get as much again as women
when you write, or for what you do. When we get our rights we
shall not have to come to you for money, for then we shall have
money enough in our own pockets; and may be you will ask us for
money. But help us now until we get it. It is a good consolation
to know that when we have got this battle once fought we shall
not be coming to you any more. You have been having our rights so
long, that you think, like a slave-holder, that you own us. I
know that it is hard for one who has held the reins for so long
to give up; it cuts like a knife. It will feel all the better
when it closes up again. I have been in Washington about three
years, seeing about these colored people. Now colored men have
the right to vote. There ought to be equal rights now more than
ever, since colored people have got their freedom. I am going to
talk several times while I am here; so now I will do a little
singing.