Ain't I a Woman Comparison

In 50 Essays, Sojourner Truth’s Ain’t I a Woman, the speech was greatly edited. Even the title was changed to be grammatically correct. The 50 Essays book focuses more so on grammatical accuracy, than historical accuracy. When they took away the historical accurateness, they took away her personality. Ms. Truth did not speak as a proper woman who wanted to speak out against women’s rights; she spoke as an uneducated African American woman who came to “tell it like it is”, while at the same time maintaining her grace, and dignity. The original speech is more believable, and relatable. The way you speak resembles the embodiment of who you are as a person. In her original dialect, it is as if she knows that she is uneducated, but she is not ashamed of it. She is here to deliver a message, and despite what you feel about her she’s going to accomplish her mission. By masking her speech in the 50 Essays book, they basically masked her roots, and took away the sense of pride that was felt as she spoke. To get up an speak out against a controversial topic as an African American woman, with inadequate speech techniques, but yet you bring the audience to their feet, gives a sense of pride not just for African Americans, but people who are shy or have their own obstacle(s) to overcome. It also masked her roots in the sense that you were not able to tell where she came from. It decreased knowledge of her background. The only clue that we could use from where she originated would be either the description, or the description of how she looked, which the main clue would be her skin color.