Sojourner Truth expressed herself without fear of the consequences. When she spoke at the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, however, a famous statement attributed to her wasn’t hers.
In 1851, white women gathered for a Women’s Rights Convention. Invited to speak on the rights of Black women, Sojourner Truth took the stage and delivered powerful words, but “Ain’t I a woman?” wasn’t part of it.
Nearly a decade after the speech, a white abolitionist rewrote most of it, adding what she thought was the Southern dialect of enslaved people. It suited her narrow-minded narrative and made Truth sound uneducated. Home girl clearly didn’t study because not only was Truth born in the North, but her first language was Dutch, not English. And Truth was also a powerful orator.
This wasn’t an innocent mistake. It’s one more example of how history often distorts the narratives of Black women to fit into a prescribed role. Even as one of the most influential Black women in American history, Sojourner Truth was still reduced to a magical Negro.
White historians have turned Sojourner’s truth into a series of half-truths. Her lived experience was far richer and more powerful than the caricature of the angry and enslaved Black woman. Anti-Blackness doesn’t always have to be in your face; it can be in places you’d least expect to find it.