Nicknamed “ Nina ,” young Angelina Grimké was very close to her older sister Sarah Moore Grimké, who, at age thirteen, begged her parents to allow her to be Angelina ’ s godmother.

This incident led to Grimké ’ s loss of faith in the values of the Presbyterian church.

With her sister Sarah ’ s support, Grimké adopted the tenets of the Quaker faith.

However, given Grimké ’ s self-righteous nature, her comments about their wasteful and flashy behavior merely served to condescend and offend those around her.

Grimké ’ s behavior even led to her official expulsion from the Presbyterian church in 1829.

Soon after she moved to Philadelphia, Grimké ’ s widowed sister Anna moved in with her.

Over time, Grimké became frustrated by the Quaker community ’ s slow and passive response to the contemporary debate on slavery.

Sarah and the traditional Quakers disapproved of Grimké ’ s new-found interest in radical abolitionism, but Grimké became steadily more involved in the movement.

Grimké had been steadily influenced by Garrison ’ s work, and this article inspired her to write him a personal letter on the subject.

Garrison was so impressed with Grimké ’ s letter that he published it in the next issue of The Liberator without her consent.

Grimké, though initially embarrassed by the letter ’ s publication, refused, and the letter was later reprinted in the New York Evangelist, other abolitionist papers and was also included in a pamphlet with Garrison ’ s noteworthy Appeal to the Citizens of Boston.

In 1836, Grimké wrote her famous An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South ( see below ), which is often considered by scholars one of the best manifestations of Grimké ’ s sociopolitical agenda.

Abolitionist Robert F. Wolcutt stated that “ Angelina Grimké ’ s serene, commanding eloquence enchained attention, disarmed prejudice and carried her hearers with her .”

Records from Grimké ’ s diaries show that Bettle intended to marry Grimké, though he never actually proposed.

Sarah, Grimké ’ s closest family member at the time of Bettle ’ s courtship, supported the match.

Grimké agreed to take in Bettle ’ s cousin Elizabeth Walton, who, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, was dying of the disease.

At the Agents ’ Convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1836, Grimké became acquainted with Theodore Dwight Weld, a member of the New England Weld Family, and an abolitionist leader and suffragist.

Grimké was greatly impressed with Weld ’ s speeches and wrote in a letter to a friend that Weld was “ a man raised up by God and wonderfully qualified to plead the cause of the oppressed .” In the two years before they married, Weld encouraged Grimké ’ s activism, arranged for many of her lectures and the publication of her writings, and also greatly influenced her abolitionist philosophy.

In 1838, Grimké began to tour the Northeast, giving abolitionist and feminist lectures in churches.

She encouraged her older sister to speak out as well, which she did, although Grimké, a natural orator, remained the main attraction of the lectures.

* Grimké sisters — they stayed at Ludlow's home in the winter of 1836-1837, and Ludlow promoted their lectures

Among Henry's family were two sisters who had opposed slavery and left the South before he began his relationship with Weston ; Sarah and Angelina Grimké became notable abolitionists in the North.

The Grimkés were also related to John Grimké Drayton of Magnolia Plantation near Charleston, South Carolina.

Grimké wrote essays, short stories and poems which were published in The Crisis, the newspaper of the NAACP, edited by W. E. B.

Both Mary and John Grimké were strong advocates of the traditional, upper class Southern values that permeated Charleston society.

Grimké and McDowell were both very opposed to the institution of slavery on the grounds that it was a morally deficient system that violated Christian law and human rights.

Grimké was struck by the lack of options for widowed women – during this period they were mostly limited to remarriage or joining the working world – and realized the importance of education for women.

Though the Grimké sisters were strongly supported by some male abolitionists such as Weld and Garrison, they were met with a considerable amount of opposition – both because they were female and because they were abolitionists.

In 1831, Grimké was courted by Edward Bettle, the son of Samuel and Jane Bettle, both of whom were active members of Philadelphia Quaker society.

They were responsible for the advanced education of the three black sons of their brother Henry W. Grimké ( 1801-1852 ).

Two of Grimké ’ s most notable works were her Appeal to the Christian Women of the South and her series of letters to Catharine Beecher.

Grimké ’ s responses were a defense of both abolitionist and feminist movements.

Sarah Grimké ( 1792-1873 ) and Angelina Grimké ( 1805-1879 ), known as the Grimké sisters, were 19th-century Southern American Quakers, educators and writers who were early advocates of abolitionism and women's rights.

The public speaking of the Grimké sisters was also criticized because they were women.

* An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States, Sarah Grimké, 1836.

In the summer, she took a teaching position and repaid her father's promissory note, and she took Latin, grammar, and mathematics instruction from Alfred Bartlett, a divinity student and an admirer of the abolitionist Grimké sisters.

Angelina Weld Grimké ( February 27, 1880 – June 10, 1958 ) was an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright and poet who was part of the Harlem Renaissance ; she was one of the first African-American women to have a play performed.

In the biography, The Grimké Sisters from South Carolina, historian Gerda Lerner writes that “ 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 ( and later, fellow abolitionist ), Sarah, Angelina seemed to be naturally inquisitive and outspoken, a trait which often offended her rather traditional family and friends.

Afterwards, Grimké became convinced that the South was not the proper place for her or her work, and so she relocated to Philadelphia.

Her letter to Garrison and Appeal to the Christian Women of the South gave Grimké a considerable amount of national recognition as a figure in the abolitionist movement, which enabled her to participate in many anti-slavery events, even though she was female.

Grimké also states, in a reply letter to Catharine E. Beecher, what she believes to be the abolitionist ’ s definition of slavery: “ Man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property.

Grimké continues by directly responding to Beecher ’ s traditionalist argument on the place of women in all spheres of human activity: “ I believe it is the woman ’ s right to have a voice in all the laws and regulations by which she is to be governed, whether in Church or State: and that the present arrangements of society, on these points, are a violation of human rights, a rank usurpation of power, a violent seizure and confiscation of what is sacredly and inalienably hers .”

Lockwood was in a scramble with no vice president, so, in the end, she chose Charles Stuart Weld, son of progressives Theodore Dwight Weld and Angelina Grimké.

Welcoming them into the family, she worked to provide funds to educate Archibald and Francis Grimké ..

Sarah Moore Grimké was the author of the first developed public argument for women's equality and she strived to rid the United States of slavery, Christian churches which had become “ unchristian ,” and prejudice against African-Americans and women.

In December 1878, when Forten was 41, she married Presbyterian minister Francis J. Grimké, the nephew of abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké.

Charlotte Forten Grimké was a regular journal writer until she returned north after teaching in South Carolina.