Mr. Robert Sandler recently participated in an Academy of Teachers seminar led by Nell Irvin Painter, the Princeton professor & preeminent biographer of Sojourner Truth. Dr. Painter presented influential scholarship that reexamines Sojourner Truth’s famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, explaining that the widely circulated version was written years later by a white abolitionist who rendered Truth’s words in a Southern dialect she never spoke—shaping her public image for nineteenth-century audiences.
The seminar deepened our understanding of Truth’s broader activism, highlighting her origins in a Dutch-speaking, upstate New York enslaved community, her deep religious faith, and her lifelong work linking abolitionism, women’s rights, and moral reform. Later in Michigan, Truth supported Black soldiers during the Civil War and advocated for the rights and economic security of formerly enslaved people.
Equally valuable was the opportunity to collaborate with educators from across New York City—both public and independent schools—sharing strategies for teaching complex history with accuracy, nuance, and care. These insights will directly inform our APUSH curriculum, particularly our focus on abolitionism, historical memory, and the ways voices from the past are shaped and reshaped over time. This visit aligned perfectly with the APUSH Cilvil War unit!
