February 26, 2019

Angelina Grimke will burn it all down

“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 destined us to occupy.” - Sarah Grimke

The Grimke sisters were AMAZING. Sarah and Angelina were born in Charleston, South Carolina, basically were like “slavery is bullshit” and moved up north to Philadelphia in the 1820s, where they became ardent abolitionists.

Growing up, Sarah wanted to be a lawyer and taught herself geography, history, and mathematics, but since it was the 1810s, her going to college was a non-starter. Thanks, Past. Really outshining yourself there.

The Grimkes in Philadelphia were among the first female public speakers in America. They spoke against slavery to men and women (shocking!!) in the 1830s. Lucretia Mott was in their circle and specifically spoke up about supporting them and their public speaking, because people were being terrible to them about it. Women speaking in front of men was NUTS back then.

Angelina Grimke was a badass and I love her. She wrote “Appeal to the Christian Women of the South” in 1836 to try to persuade other Southern women to see the problems with enslaving other people. But the BEST thing she did, IMO, was when she and a group of black and white women were in the newly-built Pennsylvania Hall, dedicated to abolition and soon to be destroyed by an angry racist mob. Angelina first gave an awesome speech, including:

“Do you ask, ‘what has the North to do with slavery?’ Hear it – hear it. Those voices without tell us that the spirit of slavery is HERE, and has been roused to wrath by our abolition speeches and conventions”

THEN when they were worried about violence from the mob outside, she told the white women to link arms with the black women and exit that way, because she knew the mob wouldn’t dare hurt white women. USING HER PRIVILEGE FOR GOOD. ANGELINA GRIMKE.

Then she got married to abolitionist Theodore Weld and she stopped speaking publicly, so thanks again, 19th century marriage. You did your thing again.