Sarah Moore and Angelina Emily Grimke :: essays research papers

Sarah (Moore) and Angelina (Emily) GrimkeSarah is the eldest of the Grimke sisters, born in Charleston SouthCarolina in November of 1792. Angelina, the youngest, was born in Massachusettsin February of 1805. The Grimke family consisted of the sisters, an aristocratic,slave owning father, Judge behind Faucherand and Mother, Mary Smith Grimke. Sarahhad the overwhelming desire to practice law, though due to her status as a women,she was not admitted, or allowed to attend any Universities that were procurableat the clock. This was only the beginning to the discrimination and humiliationshe was to experience in her fight against sexism.Both Sarah and Angelina joined the Society of Friends (a.k.a. Quakers)in Philadelphia in their early twenties. Their time there strengthened theirindependent thinking skills. The sisters were unhappy with the Society ofFriends, due to the strict regulations they lived under. Soon afterward bothsisters moved to North Carolina to join the Anti-Slavery mov ement.In 1835 Angelina wrote a letter of support to Abolitionist leaderWilliam Lloyd Garrison who published it in his newspaper The Liberator. Thefollowing year, 1836, she composed a thirty page parcel of land entitled An Appeal tothe Christian Women of the South. This pamphlet urged southern women to persuadetheir influential husbands to re-examine the morality of the slavery institution.A similar plea was made towards the southerly Church institutions months later inAn Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States. Though praised by otherabolitionists in the free states, officials in South Carolina burned copies andthreatened imprisonment to the authors should they come back to that state. Duringthis time the sisters released their own family slaves after they wereapportioned to them as part of the family estate.Angelina also began the sisters speaking career in the private homes ofPhiladelphia women. The sisters moved to New York in 1836 where they turn tothe larger audiences o f Churches and public halls. With all their good effortsthe sisters were brought under fire from the General Association of