author
Sarah Grimké
1792–1873
Born into a wealthy South Carolina slaveholding family, this early abolitionist became one of the boldest public voices against slavery and for women’s rights. Her life and writing helped connect antislavery activism with the fight for women’s equality.
1 Audiobook
Letters on the equality of the sexes, and the condition of woman
by Sarah Grimké
About the author
Sarah Moore Grimké was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on November 26, 1792, and grew up in a prominent slaveholding family. Over time she came to reject slavery, left the South, and settled in Philadelphia, where she joined the Society of Friends. That break with her upbringing shaped the rest of her life and public work.
With her younger sister Angelina, she became a powerful antislavery speaker and writer at a time when women were often attacked simply for speaking in public. The Grimké sisters drew unusual attention because they had witnessed slavery firsthand, and Sarah also became an important early advocate for women’s rights. Her best-known writing includes Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, which argued clearly and forcefully for women’s intellectual and moral equality.
Remembered today as one of the Grimké sisters, she stands out as a reformer who linked personal conscience, abolition, and women’s equality in a single moral vision. She died on December 23, 1873, in Massachusetts, but her work remains part of the foundation of American feminist and antislavery history.