Angelina Emily Grimké (Weld)

Angelina Emily Grimké (Weld)

Library of Congress

Quick Facts

Significance:

Abolitionist, suffragist, orator, writer

Place of Birth:

Charleston, South Carolina

Date of Birth:

February 20, 1805

Place of Death:

Hyde Park, Massachusetts

Date of Death:

October 26, 1879

Place of Burial:

Mattapan, Massachusetts

Cemetery Name:

Mount Hope Cemetery

When she took to the rostrum at the Massachusetts State House in 1838, Angelina Grimké became the first American woman to speak in front of a US legislative body. Her work as a lifelong activist, abolitionist, and women’s rights advocate defied gender standards of her time.

"I recognize no rights but human rights." -From a letter written to Catherine Beecher, 1837.

Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Angelina Emily Grimké became the youngest of John Fauchereaud and Polly Smith Grimké’s 14 children. Grimké grew up attending an Episcopal church with her family. The Grimkés not only owned enslaved laborers but used cruel forms of torture as punishment to exert authority over the enslaved people working in their home.

In defiance of the hypocritical Christian faith she saw her family display, Angelina adopted the Presbyterian faith at the age of 21. Her peaceful spirituality prompted Angelina to despise the horrific acts of violence against enslaved people. Grimké taught at Sabbath Schools until her abolitionist sentiments caused her to be removed from the Presbyterian church in 1829.¹

Immediately following this removal, Angelina moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to join her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, and the Society of Friends as a Quaker. Throughout the 1830s, the Grimké sisters grew vocal about their dissatisfaction with Southern enslavement.The Grimkés spoke in a variety of venues on behalf of the American Anti-Slavery Society, drawing from their own experiences growing up in Charleston.² Because the public did not fully welcome women as speakers, the Grimké sisters faced pushback from mixed-gender audiences, even in the North. In fact, when Angelina Grimké first spoke in Boston in 1837, she did so in front of a female-only audience. The sisters persisted, joining women’s groups such as the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

Angelina Grimké’s abolitionist work reached a greater audience when she sent a letter to publisher William Lloyd Garrison in 1835. Grimké wrote the letter following a pro-slavery riot that occurred in Boston in which Garrison’s life had been threatened by an angry mob of pro-slavery protesters. Garrison published her letter in The Liberator, broadcasting Grimke’s abolitionist beliefs as a religious Southern woman. In 1836, she published An Appeal to Christian Women of the South. An Appeal sought to persuade the perspectives of religious Antebellum women to be more sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause by reminding them of the atrocities that occur within the institution of enslavement. Around this time, she met her future husband, abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld.

Following the release of Angelina’s publication, the Grimkés gained attention and began associating with well-known abolitionists across the country. The Grimké sisters went on a speaking tour across the northeast collecting signatures of thousands of their anti-slavery supporters. Angelina and the American Anti-Slavery Society planned to send the list of supporters to the US Supreme Court to advocate for the abolition of enslavement nationwide. The Grimké sisters spoke in and around the Greater Boston area in venues such as the African Meeting House, Faneuil Hall, and Odeon Hall. Sarah and Angelina’s agenda included both abolition and women’s rights influenced by their religious faith.

Boston abolitionist Wendell Phillips spoke highly of their activism claiming, "there was hardly any contribution to the anti-slavery movement greater or more impressive than the crusade of the Grimké sisters through [the] New England States."³

The following year, Angelina Grimké became the first female to address a US legislative body when she spoke in the Massachusetts State House on February 21, 1838. In doing so, she defied societal expectations for women of her time and broke barriers for female political involvement in the mid-1800s. Grimké presented the anti-slavery petitions to a committee of the Massachusetts State Legislature. Her speech brought not only the topic of abolition into the political atmosphere but women’s voices as well.

Angelina Grimké and Theodore Weld married on May 14, 1838, in the newly opened Pennsylvania Hall in Philadelphia. Many members of the abolitionist community came together for the wedding, both Black and White. Just days following their nuptials, Angelina delivered a speech for the Anti-Slavery Convention for American Women in Pennsylvania Hall when an angry mob attacked the building.

Angelina Grimké Weld retired from public speaking in 1838 but continued to use her influence as a female activist to advocate for various causes. In 1839, Angelina, Sarah, and Theodore published American Slavery As It Is: Testimony Of A Thousand Witnesses, although Theodore is listed as the sole author.

Angelina and Theodore had three children - Charles Stuart (1839), Theodore Grimké (1841), and Sarah Grimké Weld (1844).⁴ The Grimké-Weld family moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts in 1863. In fact the Grimké sisters attempted to submit ballots in 1870 even though women did not have the right to vote in the state.⁵

After suffering from a stroke some years prior, Angelina Grimké Weld passed away in 1879. Speakers at her funeral services included Elizur Wright, Reverend Robert F. Wallcutt, Lucy Stone, and Wendell Phillips.⁶ She is buried in an unmarked grave.

Angelina Grimke’s efforts as an abolitionist, women’s rights advocate, author, and orator paved the way for future female activists. The Woman's Journal published Angelina Grimké’s obituary, highlighting her life accomplishments. Lucy Stone wrote,

The women of to day owe more than they will ever know to the high courage, the rare insight, and fidelity to principle of this woman, by whose sufferings easy paths have been made for them.⁷ 

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Footnotes

1. Gilda Lerner, The Grimké Sisters from North Carolina: Pioneers for Women’s Rights and Abolition, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004).
2. Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick, "Breaking Ground for Suffrage," in Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, Enlarged Edition, Harvard University Press, 1996.
3. Kerri Greenridge, The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in An American Family, (Liveright Publishing Corporation. New York, NY, 2023), 76.
4. Debra Michals,  "Angelina Grimke Weld,"  National Women's History Museum, 2015.  www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/angelina-grimke-weld.  
5. Flexner and Fitzpatrick, "Breaking Ground for Suffrage," in Century of Struggle: The Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States, 157-170. 
6. Theodore Dwight Weld, In Memory (Published by George H. Ellis, Harvard University collections, 1880).
7. Lucy Stone, "In Memoriam," Woman’s Journal, November 1, 1879.