Women were not a whit behind men in their devotion to the cause of freedom.Conspicuous among them were Sarah and Angelina Grimke, born in Charleston, South Carolina, of a slaveholding family noted for learning, refinement, and culture.Sarah was born in the same year as James G.Birney, 1792; Angelina was thirteen years younger.Angelina was the typical crusader: her sympathies from the first were with the slave.As a child she collected and concealed oil and other simple remedies so that she might steal out by night and alleviate the sufferings of slaves who had been cruelly whipped or abused.At the age of fourteen she refused to be confirmed in the Episcopal Church because the ceremony involved giving sanction to words which seemed to her untrue.Two years later her mother offered her a present of a slave girl for a servant and companion.This gift she refused to accept, for in her view the servant had a right to be free, and, as for her own needs, Angelina felt quite capable of waiting upon herself.
Of her own free will she joined the Presbyterian Church and labored earnestly with the officers of the church to induce them to espouse the cause of the slave.When she failed to secure cooperation, she decided that the church was not Christian and she therefore withdrew her membership.Her sister Sarah had gone North in 1821 and had become a member of the Society of Friends in Philadelphia.In Charleston, South Carolina, there was a Friends' meeting-house where two old Quakers still met at the appointed time and sat for an hour in solemn silence.Angelina donned the Quaker garb, joined this meeting, and for an entire year was the third of the silent worshipers.This quiet testimony, however, did not wholly satisfy her energetic nature, and when, in 1830, she heard of the imprisonment of Garrison in Baltimore, she was convinced that effective labors against slavery could not be carried on in the South.With great sorrow she determined to sever her connection with home and family and join her sister in Philadelphia.There the exile from the South poured out her soul in an Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.The manuscript was handed to the officers of the Anti-slavery Society in the city and, as they read, tears filled their eyes.The Appeal was immediately printed in large quantities for distribution in Southern States.
Copies of the Appeal which had been sent to Charleston were seized by a mob and publicly burned.When it became known soon afterwards that the author of the offensive document was intending to return to Charleston to spend the winter with her family, there was intense excitement, and the mayor of the city informed the mother that her daughter would not be permitted to land in Charleston nor to communicate with any one there, and that, if she did elude the police and come ashore, she would be imprisoned and guarded until the departure of the next boat.On account of the distress which she would cause to her friends, Miss Grimke reluctantly gave up the exercise of her constitutional right to visit her native city and in a very literal sense she became a permanent exile.
The two sisters let their light shine among Philadelphia Quakers.
In the religious meetings negro women were consigned to a special seat.The Grimkes, having first protested against this discrimination, took their own places on the seat with the colored women.In Charleston, Angelina had scrupulously adhered to the Quaker garb because it was viewed as a protest against slavery.In Philadelphia, however, no such meaning was attached to the costume, and she adopted clothing suited to the climate regardless of conventions.A series of parlor talks to women which had been organized by the sisters grew in interest until the parlors became inadequate, and the speakers were at last addressing large audiences of women in the public meeting-places of Philadelphia.
At this time when Angelina was making effective use of her unrivaled power as a public speaker, she received in 1836 an invitation from the Anti-slavery Society of New York to address the women of that city.She informed her sister that she believed this to be a call from God and that it was her duty to accept.
Sarah decided to be her companion and assistant in the work in the new field, which was similar to that in Philadelphia.Its fame soon extended to Boston, whence came an urgent invitation to visit that city.It was in Massachusetts that men began to steal into the women's meetings and listen from the back seats.In Lynn all barriers were broken down, and a modest, refined, and naturally diffident young woman found herself addressing immense audiences of men and women.In the old theater in Boston for six nights in succession, audiences filling all the space listened entranced to the messenger of emancipation.There is uniform testimony that, in an age distinguished for oratory, no more effective speaker appeared than Angelina Grimke.It was she above all others who first vindicated the right of women to speak to men from the public platform on political topics.But it must be remembered that scores of other women were laboring to the same end and were fully prepared to utilize the new opportunity.
The great world movement from slavery towards freedom, from despotism to democracy, is characterized by a tendency towards the equality of the sexes.Women have been slaves where men were free.In barbarous ages women have been ignored or have been treated as mere adjuncts to the ruling sex.But wherever there has been a distinct contribution to the cause of liberty there has been a distinct recognition of woman's share in the work.The Society of Friends was organized on the principle that men and women are alike moral beings, hence are equal in the sight of God.As a matter of experience, women were quite as often moved to break the silence of a religious meeting as were the men.
