# Grimké sisters

The Grimké sisters, Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873) and Angelina Emily Grimké (1805–1879), were well-known white American advocates of women's rights. Both Grimkés were public speakers, writers, and educators.
The Grimké sisters were involved with the abolition movement and were among the first American-born women to engage in public speaking tours, connecting struggles for civil rights for African Americans and civil rights for women in their speeches. Sarah Grimké's pamphlet, The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women, has been called "the first serious discussion of women's rights by an American woman."
The sisters grew up in a slave-owning family in South Carolina and became part of Philadelphia's substantial Quaker society in their twenties. The sisters, along with Angelina's husband Theodore Dwight Weld, founded a private school in 1848 on their farm in Belleville, New Jersey.

## Early life, Education, and Family

Sarah Moore Grimké and Angelina Grimké Weld were born in Charleston, South Carolina. Sarah and Angelina's father, Judge John Faucheraud Grimké, was an advocate of slavery. He owned several plantations and hundreds of enslaved people. Grimké had 14 children with his wife Mary (née Smith) and at least three children with enslaved women. Three of his children died in infancy. Sarah was his sixth child with Mary, and Angelina was the thirteenth. In 1783, Grimké was elected as chief judge of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. In 1810, Sarah and Angelina's uncle, Benjamin Smith, served as governor of North Carolina.
Sarah recalled being skeptical of slavery from a young age. She later recounted that at age five, after witnessing a slave being whipped, she tried to board a steamer to live in a place without slavery. As she grew older, she attempted to teach enslaved people on her father's plantation how to read until her father discovered and forbade the attempts.
In adolescence, Sarah wanted to become a lawyer and follow in her father's footsteps. She studied the books in her father's library, teaching herself geography, history, and mathematics. However, her father would not allow her to learn Latin or attend law school like her brother, Thomas Smith Grimké, due to institutional restrictions on women receiving higher education. Still, her father admired her intelligence and said that if she had been a man, she would have been the greatest lawyer in South Carolina.
After completing her studies, Sarah begged her parents to allow her to become Angelina's godmother. Sarah served as a role model to Angelina, and the two sisters maintained a close relationship throughout their lives. Angelina often referred to Sarah as "mother." Such relationships were not uncommon at the time; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg writes of boarding school girls "adopting" younger girls who called the older girls "Mother."
Sarah became an abolitionist in 1821. Angelina followed her sister and became an active member of the movement. Angelina rose to notoriety in 1835 when William Lloyd Garrison published a letter of hers in his anti-slavery newspaper, The Liberator. In May 1838, she gave a speech to abolitionists despite a hostile, stone-throwing crowd outside of Pennsylvania Hall. The essays and speeches she produced during this period argued for ending slavery and advancing women's rights.
Before the Civil War, the sisters discovered that their late brother Henry had had a relationship with Nancy Weston, an enslaved mixed-race woman, after he became a widower. The two had lived together and had three mixed-race sons: Archibald, Francis, and John (who was born only a couple of months after their father died). The sisters arranged for the oldest two nephews to come north for their education and helped support them. Francis J. Grimké became a Presbyterian minister who graduated from Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) and Princeton Theological Seminary. In December 1878, Francis married Charlotte Forten, a noted educator and author. The couple had one daughter, Theodora Cornelia, who died as an infant. Archibald also graduated from Lincoln University, followed by Harvard Law School. He served as American Consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894 to 1898. A daughter of Archibald, Angelina Weld Grimké became a noted poet and playwright.

## Activism

Sarah first encountered the Quakers in 1818 during a trip to Philadelphia for medical care. The Quakers' views on slavery and gender intrigued her, particularly their religious values of sincerity, simplicity, and commitment to equality. Their outspoken disapproval of gender inequality and slavery deeply resonated with her personal beliefs.
After her father's death that same year, Sarah returned to Charleston, where her anti-slavery sentiments deepened significantly, and her abolitionist beliefs began to take root. These evolving views profoundly influenced her sister Angelina, who would later join her in advocating for abolition and gender equality. In February 1828, Angelina became the first woman to address the Massachusetts State Legislature when she brought an anti-slavery petition signed by 20,000 women to the governing body.
Sarah left Charleston for good in 1821, relocating to Philadelphia, with Angelina joining her in 1829. There, the sisters became involved in the Quaker community. Angelina's 1835 letter in support of the abolitionist movement to William Lloyd Garrison was published in The Liberator without her permission. Various members of the Quaker community asked Angelina to retract her radical statements, but she refused to change a word or remove her name from the letter. Because of the Quakers' strict adherence to traditional manners and the expectation that individuals defer to the congregation before taking public action, both sisters were rebuked by the Quaker community. Despite this rebuke, Sarah and Angelina were embraced by the wider abolitionist movement and started actively working to oppose slavery. Leaving the Quaker community seemed to free both sisters of the many restrictions in their lives. They quickly channeled their physical and intellectual energy into activism. Abolitionist Theodore Weld, who would later marry Angelina in May of 1838, trained the sisters to be abolition speakers. In 1836 Sarah was rebuked by the Quakers again when she tried to discuss abolition in a meeting.
Following the earlier example of African-American orator Maria W. Stewart of Boston, the Grimké sisters were among the first female public speakers in the United States. They first spoke exclusively to women at parlor meetings or sewing circles, adhering to contemporary rules of gender propriety. In one case, an interested man snuck into the meeting but was subsequently removed.
Angelina Grimké wrote her first tract, Appeal to the Christian Women of the South in 1836 to encourage Southern women to join the abolitionist movement for the sake of white womanhood and black slaves. Addressing Southern women, she began her piece by arguing that slavery was contrary to both the teachings of Jesus Christ and the United States Declaration of Independence statement that "all men are created equal." She discussed the damage both to slaves and to society, advocated teaching slaves to read, and urged her readers to free any slaves they might own. Although legal codes of slave states restricted or prohibited the latter two actions, Angelina urged her readers to ignore wrongful laws and do what was right: "Consequences, my friends, belong no more to you than they did to [the] apostles. Duty is ours, and events are God's." At the end of the tract, Angelina delivered a call to action, encouraging her readers to "arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict."
The sisters again sparked controversy when Sarah published Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States in 1836 and Angelina republished her Appeal in 1837. That year they went on a lecture tour to address Congregationalist churches in the Northeast United States. In addition to denouncing slavery, the sisters condemned racial prejudice and argued that white women had a natural bond with enslaved black women, two ideas that were extreme even for radical abolitionists. Their public speaking for the abolitionist cause continued to draw criticism, with each attack fueling the sisters' determination. Responding to Catharine Beecher's criticism of her public speaking, Angelina wrote a series of letters to Beecher – later published with the title Letters to Catharine Beecher – staunchly defending the abolitionist cause and her right to speak publicly. By the end of 1836, the sisters were denounced from Congregationalist pulpits. The following year, Sarah responded to the Congregationalist ministers' attacks by writing her own series of letters addressed to the president of the abolitionist society that sponsored their speeches. The series became known as Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, in which she defended women's right to the public platform. By 1838, thousands of people came to hear their Boston lecture series. In 1839, the sisters and Angelina's husband, Theodore Weld, published American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. For a time, Sarah, Angelina, and Theodore lived on a farm in New Jersey. The sisters taught at Eagleswood Military Academy, a coeducational and racially integrated school located at the Raritan Bay Union cooperative. The school was run by Theodore.
When Sarah was nearly 80, the sisters attempted to vote to test the 15th Amendment but were unsuccessful. Sarah Grimké died on December 23, 1873, in Suffolk, Massachusetts. The following year, Angelina suffered a paralyzing stroke that affected her until her death in 1879. At her own request, Angelina's grave was unmarked until the Hyde Park Historical Society installed a flat gravestone for her in 2021.

## Selections from writings

Angelina published her Appeal to the Christian Women of the South in 1836 before Sarah's similar work Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman. Both texts emphasize the equality of men's and women's creation, but Sarah also asserts Adam's greater responsibility for the Fall of man. To her, Eve, innocent of the ways of evil, was tempted by the serpent while Adam was tempted by a mere mortal. Because of the supernatural nature of her temper, Eve's sinfulness can be more easily forgiven. Further, Adam should have tenderly reproved his wife and led them both away from sin. Hence, Adam failed in two ways. By analyzing the Hebrew text and by comparing the phrasing used there with the phrasing used in the story of Cain and Abel, Sarah found that God's "curse" is not actually a curse, but a prophecy. Her concluding thought asserts that women are bound to God alone.
From Angelina Grimké's "Letter XII Human Rights Not Founded on Sex" (October 2, 1837):
   The concept of assigning distinct duties and virtues based on sex rather than fundamental moral principles has been criticized for fostering societal inequalities. Historically, this belief has often framed men as warriors with qualities such as strength and authority, while women were expected to embody dependence, beauty, and subservience. This dichotomy has been argued to perpetuate harmful stereotypes, reducing women to roles that either prioritize their physical appeal or subject them to servitude. Critics suggest that this dynamic has allowed for the systemic marginalization of women, denying them equal opportunities to engage in intellectual and moral discourse and diminishing their capacity to act as autonomous individuals. From a theological perspective, some interpretations of religious texts emphasize the equality of men and women as creations in the image of God, endowed with similar dignity and moral responsibilities. For instance, the Biblical passage in Genesis 1:27–28 describes both men and women as stewards of creation, implying equality in their divine purpose. Critics of patriarchal traditions argue that portraying women as subordinate to men distorts these principles, undermining their inherent rights and individuality. Instead of being recognized as equals and collaborators, women have often been relegated to roles that prioritize male authority, ultimately eroding their societal and spiritual agency.
Additionally, Angelina wrote: "...whatever is morally right for a man to do, it is morally right for a woman to do. I recognize no rights but human rights – I know nothing of men's rights and women's rights; for in Christ Jesus, there is neither male nor female."
   I prize the purity of his character as highly as I do that of hers. As a moral being, whatever it is morally wrong for her to do, it is morally wrong for him to do.
From Sarah Grimké's "Letter 1: The Original Equality of Woman" on July 11, 1837, Sarah precedes the following quote with the comment that all translations are corrupt, and the only inspired versions of the Bible are in the original languages:
   We must first view women at the period of her creation. "And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them." In all this sublime description of the creation of man, (which is a difference intimated as existing between them). They were both made in the image of God; dominion was given to both over every other creature, but not over each other. Created in perfect equality, they were expected to exercise the viceregency entrusted to them by their Maker, in harmony and love.
   Let us pass on now to the recapitulation of the creation of man: "The Lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone, I will make him an help meet for him." All creation swarmed with animated beings capable of natural affection, as we know they still are; it was not, therefore, merely to give man a creature susceptible of loving, obeying, and looking up to him, for all that the animals could do and did do. It was to give him a companion, in all respects his equal; one who was like himself a free agent, gifted with intellect and endowed with immortality; not a partaker merely of his animal gratifications, but able to enter into all his feelings as a moral and responsible being. If this had not been the case, how could she have been a help meet for him? I understand this as applying not only to the parties entering into the marriage contract, but to all men and women, because I believe God designed women to be a help meet for men in every good and perfect work. She was part of himself, as if Jehovah designed to make the oneness and identity of man and woman perfect and complete; and when the glorious work of their creation was finished, "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy."
   This blissful condition was not long enjoyed by our first parents. Eve, it would seem from history, was wandering alone amid the bowers of Paradise, when the serpent met with her. From her reply to Satan, it is evident that the command not to eat "of the tree that is in the midst of the garden," was given to both, although the term man was used when the prohibition was issued by God. "And the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall Ye touch it, lest Ye die." Here the woman was exposed to temptation from a being with whom she was unacquainted. She had been accustomed to associate with her beloved partner, and to hold communion with God and with angels; but of satanic intelligence, she was in all probability entirely ignorant. Through the subtlety of the serpent, she was beguiled. And "when she saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat."
   We next find Adam involved in the same sin, not through the instrumentality of a super-natural agent, but through that of his equal, a being whom he must have known was liable to transgress the divine command, because he must have felt that he was himself a free agent, and that he was restrained from disobedience only by the exercise of faith and love towards his Creator. Had Adam tenderly reproved his wife, and endeavoured to lead her to repentance instead of sharing in her guilt, I should be much more ready to accord to man that superiority which he claims; but as the facts stand disclosed by the sacred historian, it appears to men that to say the least, there was as much weakness exhibited by Adam as by Eve. They both fell from innocence, and consequently from happiness, but not from equality.
   Let us next examine the conduct of this fallen pair, when Jehovah interrogated them respecting their fault. They both frankly confessed their guilt. "The man said, the woman who thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I did eat. And the woman said, the serpent beguiled men and I did eat." And the Lord God said unto the woman, "Thou wilt be subject unto thy husband, and he will rule over thee." That this did not allude to the subjection of woman to man is manifest, because the same mode of expression is used in speaking to Cain of Abel. The truth is that the curse, as it is termed, which was pronounced by Jehovah upon woman, is a simple prophecy. The Hebrew, like the French language, uses the same word to express shall and will. Our translators having been accustomed to exercise their lordship over their wives, and seeing only through the medium of a perverted judgment, very naturally, though I think not very learnedly or very kindly, translated it shall instead of will, and thus converted a prediction to Eve into a command to Adam; for observe, it is addressed to the woman and not to the man. The consequence of the fall was an immediate struggle for dominion, and Jehovah foretold which would gain the ascendancy; but as he created them in his image, as that image manifestly was not lost by the fall, because it is urged in Gen 9:6, as an argument why the life of man should not be taken by his fellow man, there is no reason to suppose that sin produced any distinction between them as moral, intellectual, and responsible beings. Man might just as well have endeavoured by hard labor to fulfil the prophecy, "thorns and thistles will the earth bring forth to thee," as to pretend to accomplish the other, "he will rule over thee," by asserting dominion over his wife.
   Authority usurped from God, not given. He gave him only over beast, flesh, fowl, Dominion absolute: that right he holds By God's donation: but man o'er woman He made not Lord, such title to himself Reserving, human left from human free,
   Here then I plant myself. God created us equal; – he created us free agents; – he is our Lawgiver, our King, and our Judge, and to him alone is woman bound to be in subjection, and to him alone is she accountable for the use of those talents with which Her Heavenly Father has entrusted her. One is her Master even Christ.
In response to a letter from a group of ministers who cited the Bible to reprimand the sisters for stepping out of "woman's proper sphere," Sarah Grimké wrote the following in Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman in 1838:
   Men and women were CREATED EQUAL.... Whatever is right for a man, it's right for a woman. I will not seek any sex-related favors. I will not surrender our right to equality. All I ask of our brethren is that they will take their feet off our necks and permit us to stand upright on that ground which God destined us to occupy.

## Legacy

* In 1880, Theodore Weld published a volume titled In Memory: Angelina Grimké Weld.
* The first volume of History of Woman Suffrage, published in 1881, is inscribed to the memory of the Grimké sisters, among others.
* In 1973 Ruth Bader Ginsburg quoted Sarah Grimké as saying, "I ask for no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks," when Ginsburg gave her first oral arguments to the Supreme Court in Frontiero v. Richardson; the quote was also recited by an actress playing Ginsburg in the film RBG (2018).
* The Grimké sisters and Theodore Dwight Weld are featured prominently in the juvenile fiction book The Forge and the Forest (1975) by Betty Underwood.
* Angelina Grimké is memorialized in Judy Chicago's 1979 artwork The Dinner Party.
* In 1998, the Grimké sisters were inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.
* The Grimké sisters appear as main characters in Ain Gordon's 2013 play If She Stood, commissioned by the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
* Sue Monk Kidd's 2014 novel The Invention of Wings is based on the life of Sarah Grimké.
* In 2016, Angelina Grimké was inducted into the National Abolition Hall of Fame.
* "The Grimké Sisters at Work on Theodore Dwight Weld's American Slavery As It Is (1838)" is a poem by Melissa Range, published in the September 30, 2019, issue of The Nation.
* In November 2019, a newly reconstructed bridge over the Neponset River in Hyde Park was renamed for the Grimké sisters. It is now known as the Grimké Sisters Bridge.
* The Grimké sisters are remembered on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail.

## Archival material

The papers of the Grimké family are in the South Carolina Historical Society, Charleston, South Carolina. The Weld-Grimké papers are in the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Papers of Sarah Grimké are held by the University of Texas Library, Austin, Texas. The Library of Congress holds five letters from Sarah Grimké to Sarah Mapps Douglass.