The Grimke Sisters – Claiming Equality with Courage
Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting
Pastor Beth Henricks
October 13, 2024
Our Scripture reading today is Scripture – Ephesians 4:14-16
14 We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming; 15 but speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Friends, Bob is on vacation this week with Sue on her fall break, so I am sharing the message with you today. I am following Bob’s outline for his fall series on Quaker leaders, influencers and important men and women in our Quaker history. Today we will reflect on the Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, two women born into privilege in a prominent Charleston SC family in 1792 and 1805 respectively. Their father was a respected judge, their mother from a wealthy established Southern family and they had a large plantation in Beaufort as well as a large house in Charleston with plenty of slaves to do the work.
Theirs was a large family with Sarah being the 5th child and Angelina being the 14th and last child. There was a 13-year difference in age between the sisters and yet they became the closest of all siblings and Sarah became a “mother” to Angelina at age 13. They both had 2 black servants each, a nursemaid and a companion. When Sarah misbehaved as a child, she was sent out in the fields to work and saw firsthand the cruelty and brutality of slavery and she grew to hate it. Sarah saw a slave being whipped and it broke her down into tears. When her slave companion died, she refused to have another slave companion.
Sarah likely imparted her views on slavery to Angelina as she was growing up and they both saw slavery as a sin. They were also very religious and studied the Bible. They were intelligent and curious and read books from their father’s library. Both girls wished they could do something about slavery but were living in a period of time where the goal of southern women was to keep a good home, raise the children and be a good companion to their husband. Sarah in particular wanted to become a lawyer like her older brother that she much admired but her father didn’t believe that women needed that much education.
When Sarah and Angelina’s father became quite ill, Sarah took him to Philadelphia for treatment and stayed with him until his death there. She found the Quakers while in Philadelphia and joined the 4th and Arch St Meeting. Angelina later joined her in Philadelphia and also joined the Quaker Meeting where they found an openness and embrace of their female voices.
Over the next few decades, they became very involved in the abolitionist movement and worked with some of the significant and well-known names in the movement. They had a strong voice and moral clarity against slavery, and they had a Southern female perspective having been a part of the ruling class that owned slaves. Their passion also grew out of their religious and spiritual connection and believed strongly that slavery was not Christian, was not a practice and belief that should be associated with Christianity in any way.
As they became more and more vocal in the movement, their Quaker Meeting began to feel that they were pushing too hard and too quickly for radical change. Some of the Meeting felt particularly that Angelina was running ahead of her guide and that she had not seasoned her leading sufficiently. When she used strong and cutting words to describe the situation and was critical of slaveholders and those that tolerated and just looked away at the practice, the Quaker Meeting started distancing themselves from her. Sarah supported and participated in this work though her tone and approach was a bit softer. But she supported her sister, so the Quaker Meeting also began to distance themselves from Sarah. This was painful for both of the sisters as this had been their faith community that had supported their participation in their stance against slavery, they had participated in some of the work of the Meeting, they had recognized and embraced their vocal ministry as women, and they had developed some deep friendships. within the Meeting
In 1836, Angelina wrote an important and influential letter “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the Southern States” that was published as a pamphlet by the American Anti- Slavery Society (AAS). It was widely distributed and immediately recognized as a profound antislavery document. It bluntly called women and particularly Southern women “to political action, stating plainly and persuasively that their voices, when raised, would have a much more profound moral impact than the voices of men, whether slaveholders or abolitionists.” (pg 131-132) She spoke to the women through the pamphlet in a conversational way, and her reasoning was intelligent for she knew many southern women of slaveholders were educated. And she utilized the Bible effectively describing slavery as a sin which stained the sinner. Angelina encouraged these Southern women highlighting their special place in history and unique influence to participate in the work of erasing this sin. The idea that women could actually change society was revolutionary and even scandalous at the time. After this pamphlet Angelina became well known throughout the South and the North.
The same year Sarah wrote “An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States” and it was also published by the American Anti-slavery Society (AAS) and was immediately banned in every major Southern city. She based the appeal on her credentials as a reader of the Biblical text in its original language to argue that the Bible did not bless slavery.
The irony of their story is that in 1868 they discovered their brother Henry, a lawyer and the one that took over the family plantation, had fathered three children with his slave Nancy Westin. Henry had been married and had three children when his wife died fairly young. He entrusted Nancy, his head slave, with managing the home and raising the children. They had three children of their own and when Henry died, he gave Nancy and his three sons his Grimke name. When Sarah and Angelina learned of these boys when they were teenagers, they embraced them in their home and supported them in their educational endeavors and developed an important relationship with them. Two of the three sons continued in their pursuit of justice, ending slavery and the degradation of men and women throughout their lives. The Grimke sisters Angelina and Sarah who lived on a plantation with slaves and their two black nephews, Frank and Archie Grimke who became enslaved and brutalized (after their father died) only freed when the Union troops came into Charleston stand as a testament to the lasting power of pursuing justice and equality through courageous action of individuals.
Sarah and Angelina also actively pursued women’s rights and were part of the early suffrage movement that included Lucretia Mott, Lucy Stone, Maria Stewart, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B Anthony. Sarah wrote another important and influential letter, “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes” declaring the equality of women with men under God and promoted by Jesus. She defended a woman’s right to speak, their intellectual equality and their equality as spouses and not subservient or less than men in the relationship. Sarah wrote some famous words from that letter “I make no claim for favors for women but claim only equality and for men to take their feet from off our neck and permit us to stand upright on ground which God destined us to occupy. “
It has been fascinating for me to read quite a bit about these extraordinary women. I am drawn to their story that was unknown to me before the past couple of weeks in the way they were courageous in what they believed even when it turned their family of origin against them, their faith community in the Quakers against them and even some in the abolitionist movement against them as they connected the pursuit of freedom for enslaved blacks and the equal status as citizens for women. They walked away from a very comfortable life of privilege because of who they were born to and yet the moral compass that was developed in them growing up could not bring them to just accept what was and hope and pray for change in the future. They knew they had to take this stand and were willing to live with the consequences. They never had much money the rest of their lives and they were asked to never come back to Charleston as they brought shame on the Grimke name for the family that remained in the city. The twist of their story became personal for them when they discovered they had black nephews with the Grimke name. What a story of God at work through the decades.
I also find it interesting that the Quakers eventually shunned and disowned the Grimke sisters. Quakers do have a complex and complicated history with slavery. There were many Quakers that supported abolition and pursued this goal throughout their lives while there were also many Quakers that owned slaves or just looked the other way when their brethren owned slaves. These sisters were so courageous to follow their calling even when their faith community said they were moving too fast and asking for too much change too quickly. I am thankful these women stood in their truth willing to face the consequences because of how strongly they believed in the cause and in the morality of equality. These sisters are a part of the arc of the universe that keeps moving towards justice and equality and stand on shoulders upon shoulders of progress.
Sarah and Angelina were deeply spiritual women. They were moved to their courageous actions from a spiritual transformation within. Sarah particularly knew the Bible well and they were followers of Jesus. I believe they embraced our Scripture today where the author of Ephesians says we speak the truth in love, and we grow in every way to reflect Christ.
The first part of the Scripture references our youth and immaturity in our spiritual journey and how we often will allow our families and faith communities of origin to have great influence on us and we follow them sometimes without thought and reflection as young folks in our spiritual journeys. I know that was my path as I grew up in a fundamentalist tradition. I started to question many things in my teen years and sought a different path to God than my spiritual background taught. I’m sure my parents were skeptical about my questioning, but I knew they questioned some of the same things. Some of us get stuck in the early stages of our faith development and it feels too scary to question doctrine that we were given. This is what I admire and want to embrace about these Grimke sisters. They moved beyond their faith as children and joined with so many others to understand the concept of continuing revelation and showing the love of Christ with every member of the community offering solidarity with our Quaker testimonies. As the writer of Galatians said in chapter 3, verse 28, 28 There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
As we enter our time of waiting worship I offer the following queries –
Where in my life do I need to stand more courageously in the Truth?
Am I willing to face the consequences of seeking justice and equality for all?
How do I discern what God is speaking into my heart to do?