About this item
Highlights
- Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké grew up in wealth and privilege in early nineteenth century Charleston, South Carolina.
- 296 Pages
- Young Adult Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography
Description
About the Book
"Born to a family of enslavers in the South, Sarah Grimkâe and Angelina Grimkâe Weld were some of the first women to speak out about abolition and women's rights in the United States"--Book Synopsis
Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké grew up in wealth and privilege in early nineteenth century Charleston, South Carolina. Following the standards of the time, they should have known nothing but prosperity, high social status, and Southern gentility for all their lives. But neither could look away from the inhumanity, violence, and cruelty of the enslavement they saw everywhere, even in their own home. Shaped by their religious beliefs and a fierce sense of compassion, the sisters moved north to begin a fight that would change America forever.
Historian and author Angelica Shirley Carpenter tells the remarkable true story of the sisters' lives as they cut a swath across the northeastern United States, speaking out against slavery even while facing violence from pro-slavery mobs. When women were expected to stay at home and be quiet, they spoke up, too, for women's rights, becoming pioneer advocates for that civil liberties movement. Sarah and Angelina's activism played an important role in the early 1800s, and their actions have had lasting effects--influencing figures such as Ruth Bader Ginsberg--that have set the stage for present-day crusades for equality.