Women Abolitionists in the 19th Century Essay

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Weld and Truth: Speaking Their Minds

Angelina Grimke Weld and Sojourner Truth were two 19th century women who spoke up for abolition. Weld was a white Southerner; Truth was a runaway slave who became an itinerant preacher. Both women supported women’s rights and an end to slavery. One was white and from a wealthy family, another was black and poor—but both shared the same spirit and ideas, and both had seen slavery up close and personally. While Truth experienced it, Weld witnessed it, and the experiences of each transformed them and informed their speeches—Weld’s speech in Philadelphia in 1838 and Sojourner’s speech in 1851 in Akron at the Women’s Rights Convention.

The fact that both of them were women was an obstacle enough in 19th century America. It was still a man’s world—but the women population was coming together to fight some of the evils of the day that they perceived and wanted to end. They wanted to have the right to vote; they wanted to end slavery; they wanted to stop the abuse of alcohol and bring about a soberer America. The main issue for Weld was an end to slavery; the main issue for Truth was women’s rights. Weld wanted everyone to know what it was like to be a slave in the South. The people in the North had no idea—but she did: she had witnessed it growing up. Truth wanted people to see why women should be given the chance to make the world better: the first woman had turned “the world upside down all alone” and now the women of her era wanted the opportunity to “turn it back and get it right side up again!” (Truth, 1851).

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Truth, however, faced another obstacle: she lacked a formal education. Her manner of speaking, though, had an irresistible spirit that was animated by a colloquial, down-to-earth way of cutting through the clouds of nonsense and getting right to the heart of the matter. Weld, too, was an outsider in her own way. Though born free and of the same race as the white ruling class, she was still a woman and thus was viewed as not having a place in public debates. She was typically not welcomed at conventions and was in fact the first woman to ever testify before Congress, where she talked about the horrors of slavery (Ham, 2016). She had to overcome the obstacle of bias and prejudice to deliver her last public speech in Pennsylvania, where she exhorted her listeners to oppose the spirit of slavery. She urged them to educate themselves on the horrors of slavery: “To work as we should in this cause, we must know what Slavery is. Let me urge you then to buy the books which have been written on this subject and read them, and then lend them to your neighbors” (Weld, 1838).

Weld connected with her audience by often quoting the Bible and using religious imagery to convey the importance and significance of her message. For example, she started off her speech, asking like….....

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References

Ham, B. (2016). Famous speech Friday. Retrieved from http://eloquentwoman.blogspot.com/2016/09/famous-speech-friday-angelina-grimkes.html

Truth, S. (1851). Ain’t I a woman? Retrieved from https://www.nps.gov/articles/sojourner-truth.htm

Weld, A. G. (1838). Speech at Pennsylvania Hall. Retrieved from http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/grimke.html

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