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Sarah and Angelina Grimke: Influential Abolitionists Essay example

Decent Essays

Sarah and Angelina Grimke

Period 3
12/12/12

Sarah and Angelina Grimke were the first Southern women to become influential abolitionist, which spoke on the end of slavery; as well as social and political equality for freedmen and women as well. The Grimke sisters stretched the boundary of women’s public role, by giving speeches to audiences with men and women, and by speaking in front of a state legislature about African American rights. Sarah and Angelina broke many of the social and political boundaries subjected on women.
Sarah Moore Grimke was born in Charleston, South Carolina on November 26, 1792 and Angelina Emily Grimke was born on February 20, 1805 in Charleston, South Carolina. Their father was a wealthy plantation …show more content…

Sarah published An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, also published by the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1836, Angelina began to speak in front of small groups of women in New York City. This caused huge controversy as they began to speak to crowds of men and women. In 1837, the sisters toured New England which caused great controversy. Sarah’s Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman: Addressed to Mary Parker, President of the Boston Anti-Slavery Society, and Angelina’s Letters to Catharine Beecher, in Reply to an Essay on Slavery and Abolition, Addressed to A.E. Grimke. They were criticized for speaking out, but they said they had the right as women to speak, this established them as leaders of the women’s rights movement. In February 1838 Angelina became the first American women to address a legislative body. In May 1838, Angelina married abolitionist Theodore Weld in Philadelphia; their ceremony had sexual equality and attended by blacks and whites. Sarah lived with Angelina and Theodore for the remainder of her life. They helped write Theodore’s American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. In the 1840’s and 1850’s The Grimke sisters and Theodore started schools at Belleville and then at a community near Perth Amboy. In 1862 they all moved to Faimount near Boston. In 1870 the sisters joined a group

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