Angelina Grimke Quotes

it matters not what we have been but this an always this: what we shall be.

I recognize no rights but human rights.

The South has incorporated slavery into religion; that is the most fearful thing in this rebellion. They are fighting, verily believing that they are doing God service.

I am a mystery to myself.

The ground upon which you stand is holy ground:never-never surrender it.

We Abolition Women are turning the world upside down.

Can you not see that women could do and would do a hundred times more for the slave, if she were not fettered?

At April' Toss your gay heads, Brown girl trees; Toss your gay lovely heads; Shake your brown slim bodies; Stretch your brown slim arms; Stretch your brown slim toes. Who knows better than we, With the dark, dark bodies, What it means When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping Once again At our hearts?

Neither Sarah nor Angelina had originally been concerned—at least not expressly—about questioning the social inequality of women. Their main priority had been to expose the inhuman and immoral essence of the slave system and the special responsibility women bore for its perpetuation. But once the male supremacist attacks against them were unleashed, they realized that unless they defended themselves as women—and the rights of women in general—they would be forever barred from the campaign to free the slaves. The more powerful orator of the two, Angelina Grimke challenged this assault on women in her lectures. Sarah, who was the theoretical genius, began a series of letters on The Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Women.31