Angelina Grimké

“The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.” —Angelina Grimké

Born this day in 1805: Angelina Grimké (1805–1879), abolitionist and women’s rights advocate

Angelina Grimké and her sister, Sarah Grimké, were born into a prominent slave-holding family in South Carolina. As young women, both left the south to speak out against slavery. Their antislavery activism aroused harsh criticism. Much of that criticism was leveled at them because they were women daring to speak in public—and to mixed audiences.

“We have given great offense on account of our womanhood, which seems to be as objectionable as our abolitionism. I believe it is woman’s right to have a voice in all the laws and regulations by which she is governed.”

Soon they were crusading for women’s rights as well. In 1838 Angelina spoke before the Massachusetts state legislature, making an appeal for both abolition and for women’s rights. She was the first woman to address a U.S. legislature.

Angelina most famously authored the pamphlet “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.” In this pamphlet she appealed to those who claimed the Bible justified slavery and used the Bible to argue convincingly that it did not. She also co-authored, with her husband, Theodore Weld, and Sarah, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. The work was widely considered the most accurate description of slavery and was used as a resource by Harriet Beecher Stowe when writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

In 1868 Grimké learned that her brother Henry had fathered two children of an enslaved woman. Both sisters acknowledged their nephews and sponsored their education. 

After the Civil War, Grimké concentrated on the women’s movement. She, as well as her husband and her sister, played a leading role in the Massachusetts Women’s Suffrage Association. In 1870, she joined her sister and more than 40 other women in an illegal protest vote.

Angelina Grimké was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998.

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Sarah Moore Grimké

 “I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality. All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks, and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God designed us to occupy.”

Born this day in 1792: Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873), abolitionist and woman’s rights advocate

Sarah Grimké and her younger sister, Angelina, were born into a wealthy slave-holding family in South Carolina. Sarah abhorred slavery, despite the privileged lifestyle if afforded her. “Slavery,” she wrote, “was a millstone around my neck, and marred my comforts from the time I can remember myself.” Another millstone around her neck was the South’s attitude toward educating girls. Sarah longed to study law like her brother, but had to make do with studying on her own the books in her father’s library (he was a judge).

In 1821 Sarah left the South for good, and her sister Angelina followed her in 1829. Both joined the abolition movement. They were the first women to join the American Anti-Slavery Society.  The Grimké sisters aroused harsh criticism by not only speaking out against slavery, but by speaking out at all because they were women. Soon they were crusading for women’s rights as well. 

In 1836 Sarah published the An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, in which she refuted the Biblical justifications for slavery. In 1838 she published Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and The Condition of Woman. It is the first major written work arguing for equality of the sexes. In it she decries the role assigned to women; she does not dismiss the importance of motherhood or the household arts, but the instead argues against the oppression of women’s intellect and opportunity in order to cultivate them into the playthings and servants of men. She even argued for equal pay for equal work, a battle still being fought today.

I allude to the disproportionate value set on the time and labor of men and of women.…As for example, in tailoring, a man has twice, or three times as much for making a waistcoast [sic] or pantaloons as a woman, although the work done by each may be equally good. In those employments which are peculiar to women, their time is estimated at only half the value of that of men. A woman who goes out to wash, works as hard in proportion as a wood sawyer, or a coal heaver, but she is not generally able to make more than half as much by a day’s work.

The following year she co-authored, with Angelina and Angelina’s husband, Theodore Weld, American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. The work proved to be a great resource for Harriet Beecher Stowe when writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book included discussion of the sexual exploitation of women slaves by white men (a topic Sarah also addressed in Letters on the Equality of the Sexes). Their concern was made manifest in 1868 when they discovered the existence of two nephews, Archibald and Francis, children of their brother Henry and an enslaved woman. Both sisters acknowledged their nephews and sponsored their education. Francis Grimké graduated from Princeton Theological School. Archibald Grimké graduated from Harvard Law School and would go on to become both a lawyer and a leader of the NAACP.

In her later years Sarah remained active in the suffrage movement. In 1870 both she and her sister voted illegally in a local election.

Sarah Grimké was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 1998.

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