Grimke Sisters
Jordyn Robinson
Before they were abolitionists
The Grimke Sisters grew up in a very large family of twelve other siblings, Angelina Grimke being the youngest. Sarah and Angelina had a twelve year age difference,Sarah was also Angelina's God mother. Their family grew up on a slave owning plantation in South Carolina. They often saw the unfairness of slavery, even at a young age they thought it was wrong. I guess you could say they were abolitionists before they even knew they were!
Later on, when Sarah was a bit older, her father got very ill and he chose Sarah to take him to a specialist in Pennsylvania. They stayed in Pennsylvania with their Quaker friends. Sarah studied their religion and she felt a strong revival of slavery opposition. The Quakers disagreed with slavery and did not support it. But they were not the people to draw attention to themselves because their religion was very quiet. They didn't like to draw attention to themselves. In fact after their father died, she moved to Pennsylvania to become a Quaker. A few years later Angelina moved with Sarah to become a Quaker.
The Sisters Are Abolitionists
In 1835 Angelina wrote a letter to The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper. It was published. Sarah wrote "The Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States" it was also published. They had started to draw more attention to themselves, getting more known. Angelina gave speeches to big audiences, the biggest being 1,500 people. This shocked many people. Women were not expected to give speeches in public, especially to crowds containing both sexes. The men felt as if she were talking down on them, they did not exactly like her but the abolitionists appreciated what she was saying, even if she was a woman. Sarah was more gifted with writing. She wrote many books on how slavery can ruin families and why it was just plain wrong, they were published also. They eventually became very well-known and the ministers warned them to stop before something bad happened to them. They, of course did not listen.
The End of the Civil War
Angelina gave her last speech on May 14,1838. At the end of the Civil War, there was no reason to keep giving speeches and publishing books if slavery was being abolished. They did however, fight for racial equality.
Womens Rights
The sisters also fought for womens rights. They tried for many years, they also tried to wear the pant-suit men wore. But they stopped wearing them when it distracted people from the idea of all women are equal to men.