The sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké were born into a wealthy slave-owning family in South Carolina in the early 19th century. Though expected to lead privileged lives as southern belles, they rejected slavery and moved north. They became passionate abolitionists and women's rights activists, publishing influential writings, speaking at rallies, and helping to found the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Throughout their lives they faced severe criticism and threats but continued their activism until the end of the Civil War and beyond. They played a pivotal role in the abolitionist movement in America.

2. At the turn of the 19th century, about 60 years before the start of the
Civil War, the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké were born into a
wealthy, slave-owning, plantation family in Charleston, South Carolina.

3. Girls born to their
social class were
expected to live a
life of ease, strolling
in beautiful, well-
tended gardens...

4. ...attending balls, concerts, picnics, dinners, and parties,

5. all the while
wearing the
latest fashions.

6. From cradle to grave, the Grimké’s privileged life was made
possible thanks to the house slaves on hand twenty-four hours
a day, seven days a week, to attend to their every whim.

7. Outside, field slaves toiled on the family’s cotton
plantation that made all this possible.

8. But Sarah and Angelina were not destined to live out the lives of
Southern belles. Even as small children, they were horrified by
slavery. They rejected the privileged existence they were born to.
They moved to the North and tirelessly devoted the rest of their lives to
campaigning for the abolition of slavery and for women’s rights.

9. From an early age, the sisters witnessed firsthand the
brutal treatment routinely meted out to slaves.

10. During the cotton harvest, daily
lashings were the norm. As a
five-year-old, Sarah tried to run
away from home to find a place
with no slavery.

11. Later, in their writings and public speeches, the sisters vividly described
the brutal treatment of slaves that they had witnessed, ranging from
whippings, to torture, amputations, hangings, and decapitations.

12. Brutality and violence towards Africans at the hands
of their white masters was routine – considered
normal and necessary by plantation owners.

13. Every day of their lives
as antislavery activists,
Sarah and Angelina
faced harsh criticism,
ostracism, rejection, and
threats of violence, but
they never wavered on
their goal to eradicate
slavery from America.

14. When Sarah was 26
and Angelina was
13, their father
became gravely ill.
He was advised to
seek the care of a
specialist in
Philadelphia. He
asked daughter
Sarah to accompany
him on his trip.
Sarah Grimké in 1918

15. The journey to
Pennsylvania was to be
a major turning point in
Sarah’s life. While her
father underwent medical
treatment, Sarah
became acquainted with
the Quakers, pacifist
Christians who were
passionately opposed to
slavery.

16. Sarah converted
to Quakerism and
immersed herself
in absorbing
Quaker teachings.
The Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery.
Written in 1688, it is the oldest public document protesting
slavery in America. It is also the first recorded declaration of
universal human rights.

17. After a year in
Philadelphia, Sarah’s
father died. His death,
combined with her time
among the Quakers,
hardened her
determination to work
to oppose slavery. She
decided to stay in
Philadelphia and urged
her sister Angelina to
join her.

18. However, Sarah and Angelina soon found that the
Quakers weren't radical enough for them. To the Quakers,
working to oppose slavery meant holding prayer vigils.

19. The Grimké sisters wanted to take a more activist
role. they, unlike their Quaker comrades, had
witnessed years of cruelty toward slaves.
They were not content to simply pray.

20. About this time - the mid-1830s
- there was an explosion of anti-
slavery sentiment in the North.
Among groups campaigning to
end slavery, were a number of
all-women’s groups.

21. Sarah and Angelina were expelled from the
Quakers for being too radical but they found a
home among the all-female antislavery groups.

22. They joined with
abolitionist and
feminist leaders of
the day to found the
Philadelphia Female
Anti-Slavery Society.

23. While most of
their colleagues
were opposed to
slavery on
religious or
philosophical
grounds...

24. Sarah and
Angelina’s firsthand
experience with the
horrors of slavery
fired their passion
and soon propelled
them to positions of
leadership in the
anti-slavery
movement.

25. For Sarah, Angelina, and the
other radical abolitionists of
their day, the goal was a
complete social, political, and
economic reorganization of
American society.

26. They advocated for the immediate
liberation of all humans held in
bondage, the elimination of all
racial divisions, an end to the
genocidal wars against American
Indians, and an end to women’s
status as second-class citizens.

27. But even in the North, public opinion was
deeply divided. A violent pro-slavery
movement sprang up to counter the
arguments of the abolitionists.

28. Violence and strong social condemnation was aimed
at women who had overstepped social norms to work
actively and publically to oppose slavery.

29. Following a violent
pro-slavery riot in
Boston, Angelina
wrote a passionate
letter to William Lloyd
Garrison, one of
America’s leading
abolitionists and the
publisher of The
Liberator, an anti-
slavery newspaper.

30. “The ground upon
which you stand is
holy ground;
never, never
surrender it!
If you surrender it,
the hope of the slave
is extinguished...
...this is a cause
worth dying for.”
~ Angelina Grimké

31. Garrison was so
impressed and moved by
Angelina’s letter that he
published it as a tract, or
pamphlet, the leading
“social media” of the day.
Millions of copies were
printed and widely
distributed suddenly
catapulting Angeline to a
role of national
prominence.

32. In 1836, Angelina wrote
Appeal to the Christian
Women of the South.
She wrote as one
Southern lady to
another addressing her
words to Southern
women in their own
language. She took on
every argument
advanced in favor of
slavery and refuted
them all.

33. “My friends, it is a fact that
the South has incorporated
slavery into her religion;
that is the most fearful thing
in this rebellion. They are
fighting, verily believing that
they are doing God service.”
“I know you do not make the
laws, but I also know that
you are the wives and
mothers, the sisters, and
daughters, of those who do.”

34. Sarah, not to be outdone
by her little sister, wrote
her own book, An Epistle
to the Clergy of the
Southern States.

35. In 1839, Sarah published her
second book, Letters on the
Equality of the Sexes and the
Condition of Women.

36. Following the publication of their books, Sarah and Angelina
received many speaking invitations. They went on a nation-wide tour
to 37 cities and delivered nearly 70 lectures in parlours, churches,
and town halls - including a series of six lectures at Boston’s huge
Odeon theatre every one attended by sold-out crowds.
Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society 1851 American Anti-Slavery Society 1840s

37. During 1837, the
sisters spoke to over
40,000 men and
women across New
England.

38. In Charleston, South
Carolina, the Grimké’s
hometown, their books and
pamphlets were publicly
burned.

39. Any post office rumoured to have received a shipment of their
pamphlets would be vandalize or burned to the ground.
Their mother was threatened and harassed and was told her
daughters would be arrested if they ever came to visit.

40. In early 1838, Angelina was invited to address the
Massachusetts legislature in Boston’s State House and
on February 21, she became the first woman in U.S.
history to address a legislative committee.

41. She began her address:
“I stand before you as a Southerner exiled from the land
of my birth by the sound of the lash, and the piteous cry
of the slave. I stand before you as a repentant
slaveholder. I stand before you as a moral being.”
One thousand people attended both legislative sessions.

42. On May 17th, 1838, Sarah and Angelina addressed
a mixed-race, female antislavery rally in
Philadelphia, at Pennsylvania Hall, the brand new
building of the American Abolition Society.

43. A mob of hundreds of anti-abolitionists gathered outside
and hurled rocks until all the windows were broken.
Fearing for their lives, Sarah and Angelina had the
attendees leave the building with their arms linked -
black and white alternating.

44. The women got away safely, but the mob burned the building
to the ground. The level of hostility was so high that the mayor
of the city was afraid to call the fire department or the police.

45. Following this incident, in newspaper editorials and
sermons, the consensus was that the women - and their
provocative behavior - were to blame for the riot!

46. After five years of non-stop public speaking tours,
Angelina and Sarah were exhausted. They decided to
step out of the limelight, but they continued to work
behind the scenes writing and publishing.

47. For nearly twenty years, they published the
American Antislavery Society’s annual almanac,
The Slave’s Friend, and many other books,
newspapers, and pamphlets.

48. In 1861, the Civil War broke out and in 1863, Lincoln
issued the Emancipation Proclamation freeing the slaves.

49. In 1863 Sarah and Angelina opened a boarding school for
young ladies including African-Americas and native Americans.
Besides providing a classical education,
Sarah and Angelina promoted equal rights for all women.
The school was burned down.

50. Once the Civil War ended,
the Grimkés turned their
energies toward working
for women’s rights. In
March 1870, in Lexington,
Massachusetts, they
marched with a group of
42 women through a
snow storm and a crowd
of angry men to cast
ballots in the general
election.

51. Because of their ages,
they weren’t arrested.
Sarah was 77 and
Angelina 65.
Their ballots weren’t
counted but they
could claim to be the
first women to vote in
Massachusetts.
This happened
exactly 50 years
before women
won the right
to vote.

52. Sarah Grimké passed away on December 17, 1873
at the age of 84. Her younger sister, Angelina, died
in 1879 at the age of 74. They are buried in Mt.
Hope Cemetery in Boston, Massachusetts.

53. Mt. Hope Cemetery -- the final resting place of
many prominent abolitionists, both black and white,
leaders in the struggle for women’s rights, and
many prominent writers, musicians, and artists of
the pre- and post-civil war era -- is listed in the
National Register of Historic Places.

54. Death was not the final chapter in the amazing lives of Sarah and
Angelina Grimké. After the Civil War, they found out that their late
brother, Henry Grimké, had had two children with his slave, Nancy
Weston. Sarah and Angelina arranged for Nancy and her sons,
Francis and Archibald, to come to Boston.

55. With the support of his aunts,
Sarah and Angelina, Archibald
received a BA and MA from
Lincoln University, in
Pennsylvania, in 1872. He
received his law degree from
Harvard University in 1874.
He was a newspaper editor,
author, life-long activist for civil
rights, and career diplomat for the
US government.
In 1913, he founded the NAACP,
the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People,
and served as its leader until his
death in 1925.

56. Archibald and his wife, Sarah
Stanley, had one daughter. They
named her Angelina after her
famous great-aunt, and Weld,
after the famous abolitionist,
Theodore Weld.
Angelina, taking after her parents
and her great-aunts, became a
civil rights activist, journalist, and
writer.
She was a leader in the Harlem
Renaissance and the first African-
American woman to have a play
produced.

57. A year younger than brother,
Archibald, Francis Grimké also
received a BA and MA from Lincoln
University, in Pennsylvania, in 1872.
He went on to graduate from
Princeton Theological Seminary in
1875.
He was a fiery orator and life-long
activist for civil rights. In 1878, he
married Charlotte Forten, also a
renowned civil rights activist.
He founded and led the Fifteenth
Street Presbyterian Church in
Washington, DC, which is still going
strong today.
Francis died in 1937.

58. And today... two Grimkés who proudly trace their roots
to the radical abolitionists Sarah and Angelina...

59. Sarah Grimké Aucoin
Director of New York City
Parks Urban Park Rangers.
Sarah works to preserve
endangered birds and trees.
Ms. Aucoin has a BA from the
University of California and an
MS from the University of
Louisiana.

60. William Grimké Drayton
Mr. Drayton lives in England
where he is a teacher, poet, and
campaigner for racial equality.
He founded
ComeToTheTable.org
which works to unite and
reconcile descendants of slaves
and slave owners.