Most students of women's history, and particularly black women's history, are familiar with Sojourner Truth's 1851 speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" Accused of being too intelligent and too tall to be a woman, she defended herself, women's rights, and her right to defend abolitionists by exposing her breasts and saying: "Ain't I a woman?"

Textile artist Jean Ray Laury found the following words of Sojourner's in a small museum she visited in her own hometown in Iowa. Inspired by these words, she created a quilt from them, which now graces the office of the Mendocino Beacon: 

"We have many booby men in de land and they came from weak women who say 'I've got all de rights I want.' I tell you if you want great men, you must have great mothers. Why, children, rising from babies is the greatest and most important business that is done. How can a woman give brains to her baby when she hasn't got 'em herself?"