Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké grew up in a prominent family in
Charleston, South Carolina. Sarah was born in 1792, and Angelina, her
parents’ fourteenth child, was born in 1805. The Grimkés lived alternately between a fashionable townhouse in Charleston and a sprawling
plantation in the country. Like other large plantation owners, they kept
scores of slaves who did all the labor, from picking cotton to caring for the children. Even as children, both Grimké sisters were uncomfortable with the
social traditions around them, and particularly about their family owning slaves. Sarah defied her parents’ rules—and South Carolina’s laws—
by teaching a young slave in the household how to read. She also
questioned the roles she was expected to fulfill as a young woman. She
knew she was good at debating legal and social issues with her welleducated brother and father, but when her brother left for law school,
she was told that she could not follow in his footsteps because of her
gender. When Angelina was born, the thirteen-year-old Sarah assumed
responsibility for her youngest sibling. As Angelina grew older, she too
struggled with the issue of slavery.
Moving north
In 1818, Sarah accompanied her father to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
He died, leaving Sarah temporarily alone in the big city. There she met
some members of the city’s Society of Friends (Quakers). They introduced Sarah to the works of Quaker leader John Woolman
(1720–1772). Woolman strongly condemned slavery as evil and encouraged action against it. Sarah identified with his antislavery doctrine. She
converted to the Quaker religion, particularly attracted by the fact that
Quakers professed to allow women to become leaders within the church.
In 1827, when Sarah returned to Charleston for a visit, Angelina was
impressed by the simplicity of her sister’s lifestyle and her Quaker philosophy of nonviolence. She soon converted and joined her sister in
Philadelphia.
Quakers and abolitionists
In Philadelphia, Sarah and Angelina strove to be active in the Quaker
church and the antislavery cause. Sarah studied to become a member of
the clergy, but it soon became apparent to her that the Quakers were not
truly equality-minded when it came to the sexes. Meanwhile, Angelina
attempted to further her education. The Quakers, disapproving of her
ambitions, offered her a teaching position in an infant school. Angelina
halfheartedly agreed.
At that time, a widespread abolition movement was forming.
Antislavery speakers were flooding the East Coast with messages that included emancipation, or freedom for the slaves; abolition, or the end of slavery altogether; and recolonization, or sending the nation’s black population to Africa, where they could live freely. Sarah and Angelina longed
to be directly involved in the fight against slavery.
American Anti-Slavery Society
In 1833, Angelina read about the formation of the American AntiSlavery Society (AASS) in fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison’s
(1805–1879) abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. The Garrison-led
AASS was the first interracial (composed of more than one race) society
that supported immediate emancipation of slaves. Angelina attended
AASS meetings in Philadelphia and became a member of the society’s
committee for the improvement of people of color.
Angelina wrote to Garrison telling him how important his fight
against slavery was to her. Garrison, deeply moved by Angelina’s letter,
reprinted it in The Liberator. Response was overwhelming, and soon the
letter was reprinted in all the major reform newspapers of the day. The
antislavery community embraced the sisters. The Philadelphia Quakers,
though, did not approve, and forced Angelina to renounce her Quaker
membership. Angelina stepped up her efforts in the AASS, participating
in its antislavery conventions. Meantime, Sarah supported the “Free
Produce” movement—a call to boycott, or stop buying, products made
by slaves.
Power of the pen
In early 1836, Sarah and Angelina had settled in Rhode Island, where
they began to write a series of antislavery pamphlets and books. Angelina
wrote An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836), a pamphlet
arguing that slavery violated the teachings of Jesus, the Bible, and the
Declaration of Independence. It was the only known antislavery appeal
ever written by a Southern woman for Southern women. Favorably reviewed by abolition supporters in the North, the pamphlet was burned
in the South. Angelina was threatened with arrest if she returned to
Charleston.
Sarah produced An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, followed by An Address to Free Colored Americans. These antislavery tracts
had a huge impact on public opinion of the era. Because the women had grown up in a respectable family in the South, their views carried more
weight than any Northerner’s views could.
Public speaking
The sisters began speaking before small groups of women about their experiences of slavery in the South. In 1837, the Anti-Slavery Society sponsored a New England speaking tour for Angelina and Sarah. The sisters
received training for the tour from well-known abolitionist Theodore
Weld (1803–1895). They lectured mainly in churches, giving some eighty
speeches in sixty-seven communities, speaking to a combined audience of
at least forty thousand men and women over a six-month period.
Up to that time, women did not address audiences with both men
and women in attendance. The Grimkés added to the furor by being
highly outspoken on the most controversial issues of the day. While some
praised their courageous stand against slavery, many others attacked their
character.
The Grimkés responded to their attackers. Angelina wrote a series of
letters in The Liberator about the position of women in American society. (Garrison was one of the few abolitionist males willing to take up the
cause of feminism, which lost him some advocates.) Meanwhile, Sarah
wrote a pamphlet called Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the
Condition of Women.
Angelina addresses the Massachusetts legislature
On February 21, 1838, Angelina presented to the Massachusetts legislature a petition to end slavery that had been signed by twenty thousand
Massachusetts women. She was the first woman in U.S. history to speak
to a legislative body. In front of a packed house, she delivered a fiery
speech, confronting curious and jeering faces in the audience. Ten years
before the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in New York, the
Grimkés faced criticism, threats, and mockery as they combined reform
work on slavery with a public struggle for women’s rights.
Afterward, Angelina married Weld. He and the sisters moved to a
farm in New Jersey. There, the sisters wrote articles and speeches for
others to recite at antislavery and women’s rights conventions. They also took in abolitionists as boarders. Fighting for women
After the American Civil War (1861–65), Weld and the Grimkés relocated to Hyde Park, a part of Boston, where they opened a coeducational
school and continued to fight for minority rights. On March 7, 1870,
when Sarah was seventy-nine and Angelina sixty-six, the sisters boldly
declared a woman’s right to vote (suffrage) by depositing ballots in the
local election. Along with forty-two women, the sisters marched in procession in a driving snowstorm to the polling place. Onlookers jeered
them but, because of the sisters’ ages, they were not arrested. The gesture
did not change the law against women voting, but their fight for
women’s suffrage rights did receive a lot of publicity.
Sarah died in 1873. Angelina suffered several strokes after Sarah’s
death, which left her paralyzed for the last six years of her life. She died in 1879.