I thought this was interesting and I always believed the transcription I read . . . turns out it was horse doody! and the worse kind of racism rather than out n out blatant stuff the supposed well meaning white woman who penned this garbage was guilty of the most scurrilous misrepresentation!
Who Knew?
Well we SHOULD have !
Read the two versions side by side linked below and Sojourner Truth will gain even more in our estimation
Finding out that Frances Dana Barker Gage, a white woman, rewrote Sojourner Truth’s famous speech to be more stereotypically “Southern slave” (complete with slurs and misspellings like dat, dere, dey) when Sojourner Truth was actually from New York and spoke only Dutch until she was almost ten and wouldn’t have actually sounded that way linguistically and decidedly did not use the phrase “Ain’t I A Woman?” at all is…whew. And on top of everything, she embellished details about Sojourner Truth’s life (like the number of children she had/how many of them were sold into slavery), wrote that Truth said that she could take beatings like a man, and the reception of the speech in the room (she claims Sojourner was called a n*gg*r, earlier accounts say the room was welcoming).
Frances Gage
Shocked and yet don’t s’pose I should be but compare the two articles here!
Be warned the attempt at pidgeon is deeply offensive in my view and I am a sad old white man!
https://www.thesojournertruthproject.com/compare-the-speeches/
2 comments:
Thanks Andy. I'll be visiting this place tomorrow in Akron.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/site-of-sojourner-truths-aint-i-woman-speech
There are a couple of other locations mentioned on the webpage, one of them only allows scheduled visits by the local historical society, kind of a shame.
Thanks for pointing out important things! It matters. I hope that your new year is a great one. Be well.
Wow please doff your cap from me when you visit! What a wonderful thing to do and I am with you there in spirit! Thank you for the link. Also thanks for your comments and dropping by this past year and may you and yours continue to thrive in the coming New Year whatever THAT may bring!? Take the greatest care and always remember “the wolves are running” said John Masefield!
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