Women have always been fighting for the rights of others and rights for themselves; they’ve stated time after time that everyone should be equal. Equality in America meant everything to women; equality between whites and blacks, Native Americans and whites, and women and all of America. “There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights, but not a word about the colored women; and if colored men get their rights, and not colored women theirs, you see the colored men will be masters over the women,” (DuPont 12; Lewis). Passages such as the pervious sentence are just a few of many that express women’s feelings towards women’s rights and suffrage. However, women did want changes in rights for all people, but with women being women it caused a problem with people taking them seriously. In this research paper, I will be addressing three women who were abolitionists and/or activists.
Sarah Moore Grimké was born in 1792 into a well-known family in Charleston, South Carolina who owned slaves; not like some of the other children who were raised around slavery, Sarah was sickened by the sight of how slaves were treated and the idea of slavery. About thirteen years later, Angelina Grimké was born and felt the same as her sister, when it came to slavery. In 1830s, the two sisters began to speak publicly about abolitionism; in the form of speeches, books, and letters. The older Grimké sister published a book titled Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, where addresses a clergy as a southern woman speaking to other southerners about abolishing slavery; because it was against what God would want. “Slavery has disrobed him of royalty, put on him the collar and the chain, and trampled the image of God in the dust,” (Grimké 2); ...
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In Julie Roy Jeffrey’s, The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism, the main argument is that although many historians have only focused on the male influence towards eliminating slavery, it was actually women who were the driving force and backbone in abolitionism. Jeffrey explores the involvement of women, both and white, in the cause and used research from letters, societal records, and personal diary entries to delve into what the movement meant in their lives.
When I mention the names Sarah Grimke and Frederick Douglass what comes to mind? Abolitionists? Equal rights activists? Of course, these two individuals are making great strives to fight for what they believe in. The sad thing about it is that we don’t have enough people with the likes of these two. England abolished slavery in 1834 so how long will we go on with this inhumane cruelty toward people. Our country is in a state of denial and if we don’t wake up soon, we will all pay the price. I’m going to discuss a little bit about these two abolitionist speakers, than compare and contrast their roles of rhetoric, morality, ideas, and backgrounds.
The 19th century was a time of great social change in the United States as reflected by the abolitionist movement and the women’s suffrage movement. Two very influential women leaders were Angelina Grimke and Sojourner Truth. Grimke was born a Southern, upper class white woman. She moved to the North as a young woman, grew involved in abolitionism and women’s rights, and became known for her writing, particularly “Letters to Catherine Beecher”. Sojourner Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree; she escaped to freedom, changed her name, and became an active speaker on behalf of both the abolition and women’s rights movements. Truth’s most famous speech is “Ain’t I a Woman?”. While both Grimke and Truth use a personal, conversational tone to communicate their ideas, Grimke relies primarily on logical arguments and Truth makes a more emotional appeal through the use of literary strategies and speech.
Up until and during the mid -1800’s, women were stereotyped and not given the same rights that men had. Women were not allowed to vote, speak publically, stand for office and had no influence in public affairs. They received poorer education than men did and there was not one church, except for the Quakers, that allowed women to have a say in church affairs. Women also did not have any legal rights and were not permitted to own property. Overall, people believed that a woman only belonged in the home and that the only rule she may ever obtain was over her children. However, during the pre- Civil war era, woman began to stand up for what they believed in and to change the way that people viewed society (Lerner, 1971). Two of the most famous pioneers in the women’s rights movement, as well as abolition, were two sisters from South Carolina: Sarah and Angelina Grimké.
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Frederick Douglass used family values, basic human rights, and religion to persuade the northern white audience toward the cause of abolition. He expects his readers will share his “hate [for] the corrupt, slaveholding, woman whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of [southern slaveholders]” (Douglass 71). American slavery does not exist in today due partly to Douglass’s effort to help advance the cause of abolition.
To begin with, there are many events in United States history that have shaped our general understanding of women’s involvement in economics, politics, the debates of gender and sexuality, and so forth. Women for many centuries have not been seen as a significant part of history, however under thorough analyzation of certain events, there are many women and woman-based events responsible for the progressiveness we experience in our daily lives as men, women, children, and individuals altogether. Many of these events aid people today to reflect on the treatment of current individuals today and to raise awareness to significant issues that were not resolved or acknowledged in the past.
The experiences she had as a slave inspired her to become a prominent abolitionist for slave rights and women’s right. She felt that it was her God given duty to spread the cruelty, hypocrisy, and wrongness of discrimination against slaves and women. She claims that she “found Jesus” in 1827, which led her to change her name and be more religious. Her actual name was Isabella, but she chose to change it to Sojourner, she was to travel up and down the land showing people their sins and being a sign unto them ( “Sojourner Truth”). Sojourner had experienced loss that motivated her to speak to African American mothers who lost children to slavery. Sojourner’s children were all sold off to slavery. She suffered a lot from this because she knew that her children were going to be broken, a term used by white slave masters to strip a slave of th...
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At the beginning of the 19th century at the wake of a war, many mixed feelings were presented about the thoughts of slavery and the role of a women. At the time, man and religion had a reign of rule that dictated what was believed, but like any other time in history, not everyone took this kindly. The start of the abolitionist movement was started to find freedom for each slave and shortly after the formation of the women’s movement was founded. Sharing a common need of freedom for the people they worked closely together but did not always see eye to eye. During the 19th century, the abolitionist movement and the women’s rights movement shared similar needs for change, the need to create leaders to start the movement, and how both argued that
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