Hello party people and happy Wednesday! This past week one of my good friends Lauren invited me and our friend, Jessica, to the Washington Nationals opening day game. As a casual sports fan, I attended purely for the fun times and the ballpark snacks. It was the first game of the season, so they started by introducing the entire coaching and management staff. As you’d expect, it was mostly a combination of old and young white guys on staff. But, as we watched the endless parade of men, one woman was announced as a staff member this year. My friends and I went absolutely berserk cheering for her. We were so loud and excited the guy in front of us was like “oh, do you know her?” We replied, “no, we just cheer for women in sports.” After much Googling, I found out her name is Kate Donnelly. So, if anyone knows her, tell her she had some very loud fans on Opening Day!
Now, to the newsletter! Today’s issue is inspired by a TikTok I saw from @garrisonhayes which you can watch here.
Ain’t I A Woman Speech (The Real One and The Edited One)
If you’ve taken literally any women’s studies or feminist literature classes, you know the famous “Ain’t I A Woman” speech given by Sojourner Truth. For those who aren’t familiar, Sojourner Truth gave a speech at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention entitled “Ain’t I A Woman.” The speech argues men and women, both Black and white, should be treated equally in society. Did you know the speech you’ve heard and read is not the speech Sojourner Truth actually gave? Let’s get into it.
To start, we need to take it back to the mid-1800s. The first wave of feminism was in full swing and the first notable women’s rights gathering was the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, NY. This convention is known for launching the women’s suffrage movement and simultaneously pissing off lots of people in the process.
After the success of Seneca Falls, more women’s rights conventions started to pop up across the United States. The problem with these conventions is they were entirely centered on the concerns of white women and left out the voices of many other women (and men) of color who were impacted by the feminist movement. Seneca Falls literally invited one black person, Frederick Douglass, to attend. Don’t even get me started on how racist and problematic Susan B. Anthony was!
Sojourner Truth was asked to speak at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, OH. Note that she was the only Black person invited. Truth gave one of the most famous abolitionist and feminist speeches in history which was later called “Ain’t I A Woman?” You can read the full speech here. After it was published in the Anti-Slavery Bugle, the hype around the speech died down and people mostly forgot about it. That is until a white woman, Frances Gage, got her hands on it.
Frances Gage was big into women’s rights, temperance, and the abolitionist movement. She’s like a B-list celebrity of the well-known suffragettes of the time. She ran the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention where Truth gave her speech. Gage took it upon herself to republish Truth’s 1851 speech in the Independent in 1863 with some decidedly racist edits. She kept the thesis of Truth’s speech but completely changed the language. The Sojourner Truth Project does a great job breaking down the differences, but here’s an example.
The first line of Truth’s 1851 speech: May I say a few words? I want to say a few words about this matter.
The first line of Gage’s edited speech: Well, chillen, whar dar’s so much racket dar must be som’ting out o’kilter.
So, you get the vibe. Gage, a white woman, changed the words of a Black woman’s speech and added a caricature of a Southern enslaved person’s accent to the text. She basically cherry-picked stereotypes of enslaved Black women to completely change the cadence and tone of the speech. She also added false narratives about Truth. For example, in the edited speech, Truth had 13 kids and saw almost all of them sold into slavery. But that’s completely untrue. It’s been widely published that Truth only had 5 kids and only one, Peter, was sold into slavery. Gage also tried to claim Truth’s speech was poorly received by the audience at the 1851 Convention when in actuality people enjoyed the speech.
The question you’re probably asking is why would Gage, a known abolitionist, do such a blatantly racist and gross thing? Too bad you will need an Ouija board to find out. There’s no clear motive expressed in history about why Gage did this. Some say it was to make Truth seem more sympathetic by changing the tone of the speech. Others think Gage wanted to make the speech popular again by writing it in a more dramatic fashion. Regardless of the reason, it’s crucial to say… WHITE WOMEN! STOP DOING THIS! Black women do not need us to speak for them. Amplify their words, don’t edit them to fit your own agenda.
Citations
“Compare the Two Speeches” Sojourner Truth Memorial Project
“Her Words: Sojourner’s Words and Music” Sojourner Truth Memorial Project