Essay On Angelina Grimke Weld

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Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American political activist, women's rights advocate, supporter of the women's suffrage movement, and besides her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, the only known white Southern woman to be a part of the abolition movement. While she was raised a Southerner, she spent her entire adult life living in the North. The time of her greatest fame was between 1836, when a letter she sent to William Lloyd Garrison was published in his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator, and May 1838, when she gave a courageous and brilliant speech to abolitionists gathered in Philadelphia, with a hostile crowd throwing stones and shouting outside the hall. The essays and speeches she produced in that two-year period were incisive arguments …show more content…

The two sisters maintained an intimate relationship throughout their lives, and lived together for most of their lives, albeit with several short periods of separation. Even as a child, Grimké was described in family letters and diaries as the most self-righteous, curious and self-assured of all her siblings. In the biography, The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina, historian Gerda Lerner writes, "It never occurred to that she should abide by the superior judgment of her male relatives or that anyone might consider her inferior, simply for being a girl." More so than her elder sister, Sarah, Angelina seemed to be naturally inquisitive and outspoken, a trait which often offended her rather traditional family and friends. When the time came for Grimké's confirmation in the Episcopal Church at the age of 13, Angelina refused to recite the creed of faith. An inquisitive and rebellious girl, she concluded that she could not agree with it and would not complete the confirmation ceremony. Angelina converted to the Presbyterian faith in April 1826, aged …show more content…

She not only spoke against slavery, but defended women's right to petition: both as a moral-religious duty and as a political right. Abolitionist Robert F. Wallcut stated that “Angelina Grimké's serene, commanding eloquence enchained attention, disarmed prejudice and carried her hearers with her.” Grimké's lectures were critical of Southern slaveholders, but also of Northerners who tacitly complied with the status quo by purchasing slave-made products and exploiting slaves through the commercial and economic exchanges they made with slaveowners in the South. They were met with a considerable amount of opposition, both because Angelina was a female and because she was an abolitionist. Personal

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