Part 2.
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The Sojourner Truth Project
This website is dedicated to re-introducing this original transcription of the speech and Sojourner's authentic voice.

Q. Why is there more than one version of Sojourner Truth’s famous 1851, “Ain’t I a Woman” speech?

A. Most people are familiar with the 1863 popular version of Sojourner Truth's famous, “Ain’t I a woman” speech but they have no idea that this popular version, while based off of Sojourner’s original 1851 speech, is not Sojourner's speech and is vastly different from Sojourner’s original 1851 speech.

I must acknowledge Nell Irvin Painter, a professor at Princeton University, specializing in American history and notable for her works on southern history of the nineteenth century. Professor Painter was the scholar who first rang the bell on this historical mistake. This site would not be possible with out relying on her brilliant work.

The popular but inaccurate version was written and published in 1863, (12 years after Sojourner gave the "Ain't I a woman" speech), by a white abolitionist named Frances Dana Barker Gage. Curiously, Gage not only changed all of Sojourner’s words but chose to represent Sojourner speaking in a stereotypical 'southern black slave accent', rather than in Sojourner’s distinct upper New York State low-Dutch accent.

Frances Gage’s actions were well intended and served the suffrage and women's rights movement at the time; however, by today’s standards of ethical journalism, her actions were a gross misrepresentation of Sojourner Truth’s words and identity. By changing Truth's words and her dialect to that of a stereotypical southern slave, Frances Gage effectively erased Sojourner’s Dutch heritage and her authentic voice.

Adding to the oversimplification of the American slave culture and furthering the eradication of our nations Northern slave history.

Frances Gage admitted that her amended version had “given but a faint sketch” of Sojourner's original speech but she felt justified and believed her version stronger and more palatable to the American public then Sojourner's original version.

This website is dedicated to re-introducing this original transcription of the speech and Sojourner's authentic voice.
How can we honor Sojourner Truth's heritage?

In an 1851 issue of the Kalamazoo Daily Telegraph, an article states that Truth prided herself on “fairly correct English, which is in all senses a foreign tongue to her. . .. People who report her often exaggerate her expressions, putting in to her mouth the most marked southern dialect, which Sojourner feels is rather taking an unfair advantage of her”. (qtd. in Fitch and Mandziuk 1997: 129)

In 1851 the technology to record sound had not yet been invented and speeches were transcribed by reporters who did their best to record accurately. Thus, we will never know exactly what Sojourner said on that day in 1851 or exactly what her dialect sounded like, but the videos on this site help us move in the direction of truth.

Truth, unable to read or write, could not offer her own rhetoric in the written form. Her words (as we read them today) are not her words, but a representation of her words by people who transcribed them.

It is important to note Sojourner’s specific Dutch dialect is officially lost and is not rediscovered. Because of this, I have chosen to represent the speech in many different contemporary Afro-Dutch dialects.

These women and their readings do not claim to embody Sojourner in any way, in fact, none of them may be correct, but all of them are a nod to Sojourner’s authentic voice and her heritage.

The intent of these videos is to counter the hundreds of popular but inaccurate Gage versions of Sojourner's speech on the internet that portray Sojourner with a southern slave dialect.

Gage's version effectively erases Sojourner's identity and heritage, adding to the oversimplification of American slave culture and furthers the eradication of our nations Northern slave history.
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Source link: https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/