Sojouner Truth original speech sheds light on the inequalities she faced as a women. She shares how she can do everything a man does but is not given the same rights as him. Whats the excuse? Like when she says ” if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart, why can’t she have her little pint full. In those days people said men were smarter and stronger than women and everyone went with it that. I think that Truth is saying why women can’t utilize that “pint,” regardless of whether it is a smaller than that of the men. She also makes biblical references saying ” And how Jesus came into the world? Through God who created him and women who bore him. Man where is your part? She is relating the bible because religion and God and stuff was used a justifications and references relating to slavery and womens rights. She is saying how Jesus came from God and a women. Man, the same men/man who think they are superior, smarter, and stronger than women has nothing to do with this, they play no part.
Frances Gage’s very inaccurate version of Truth’s speech I think should have not been published. I get that she was also on the side of womans rights and abolition of slavery but I feel as though she took Sojourner speech and devalued it. First off by falsely giving the speech a “southern slave dialect” its like she wanted to “dumb it down”. Truth didn’t even talk like that, she spoke dutch so that is kinda offensive. In addition if Gage was trying to tell Truth’s story/speech it wasn’t even correct. She is talking about things that 1. wasn’t true and 2. things she can never even relate to. When she says ” I have borne thirteen chillen, and seen ’em mos’ all sold off into slavery…” Gage was a white women and she didn’t have thirteen children. She never was a slave, and she never had her children taken from her. So for her to have taken Truth’s speech, devalue it, “dumb it down” and not only practically take credit for it and have no idea of the hardships, trauma, and suffering that African Americans endured for over 300 years is down right offensive. But this is not something we haven’t heard before, this has been going on even before this too.
