Angelina Weld Grimke's Poetry and Use of Nature Essay

The title of this book comes from the inspiring words spoken by Sojourner Truth at the 1851, nine years prior to the Civil War at a Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio. In Deborah Grays White, Ar’n’t I a woman her aim was to enrich the knowledge of antebellum black women and culture to show an unwritten side of history of the American black woman. Being an African- American and being a woman, these are the two principle struggles thrown at the black woman during and after slavery in the United States. Efforts were made by White scholars in 1985 to have a focus on the female slave experience. Deborah Gray White explains her view by categorizing the hardships and interactions between the female slave and the environment in which the

Baym, Nina, and Robert S. Levine. "Angelina E. Grimke." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton, 2013. 771-75. Print. Grimke expresses how slavery is not right in any way, shape, form or fashion. She states now God does not approve of this. She also states how it is not in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution or anything like that.

Sarah E. Goode was born into slavery by her mom and dad. Her father ,Oliver Jacobs, was a carpenter. Her mother was

In early nineteenth-century Charleston, homeowners owned slaves, businesses owned slaves, and as did some of the free African Americans. This was the same for many cities in early America however time progressed and soon American cities abolished slavery albeit Charleston did not. Charleston, South Carolina, a very Southern city, was well known for its aristocratic classes of wealthy people and its large population of slaves. The civilians were known for their Southern pro-slavery views and hatred to those who oppress their beliefs of slavery, specifically the Quakers; abolitionists of slavery and for women’s rights. My life setting here in Canada is contradicting to those of the early nineteenth century lifestyles. In Canada, we believe in equality for colour and gender alike while in Charleston this was the flip. Sarah Grimke, a woman of Quaker faith belonging to a family of pro-slavery, is not only berated for her long time views of slavery but also for her goals and dreams for women. Upon Sarah’s arrival from her new home in the North to her old home back in Charleston a woman stated but was soon cut off, “You’re the Grimke daughter, aren’t you…the one who-…She’d meant to say the one who betrayed us.” (Kidd

The poem describes the weather and its effect on cotton flower by pointing out the dying branches and vanishing cotton. The image of insufficiency, struggle and death parallel the oppression of African American race. The beginning of the poem illustrates the struggle and suffering of the cotton flower; which represent the misery of African Americans and also gives an idea that there is no hope for them. But at the end the speaker says “brown eyes that loves without a trace of fear/ Beauty so sudden for that time of year” (lines 13-14). This shows the rise of the African American race, and their fight against racism. The author used mood, tone and

Angelina E. Grimke’s Letters to Catharine Beecher is a contrasting response to Beecher’s Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism, which was

Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and

“Cruelty is contagious in uncivilized communities.” In Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Jacobs provides a portrayal of her life as a black slave girl in the 1800s. Though Harriet described herself as having yellowish brown skin; she was the child of a black mother and a white father. “I was born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.” Born with one drop of black blood, regardless of the status of her white father, she inherited the classification of black and was inevitably a slave. Harriet endured years of physical and mental abuse from her master and witnessed firsthand how slaves were treated based on the color of their skin. Years of abuse can only be taken for so long, like many

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

Two girls born into the same era of American history: despite their vast similarities, what makes these two independent and value-driven young women so different? Since they were living in the same country, many would think that their upbringings would be parallel. On the surface, the only differences between the two girls were their geographic location and their skin color, but during the nineteenth century these actually made a drastic difference in the every day lives of young women. The juxtaposition of the lifestyles of these two young women illuminate the differences which stem from factors such as family, work, education, and religion. These aspects of life were results of the experiences Harriet Jacobs faced as a Southern slave girl in contrast with Harriet Hanson Robinson’s presence in the industrial revolution as a mill girl in New England.

Throughout Kidd’s exquisitely written story, Handful struggles, sometimes with quiet dissidence, sometimes with open rebellion, to cultivate a belief in the invincibility of her spirit and in the sacred truth that one does not need actual wings in order to rise. Barely a stone’s throw from the slave quarters where Handful and her mother share a room behind the grand Grimké house, another young woman fights a different battle with the constraints of her society. Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter of a wealthy and prominent family at the pinnacle of Charleston’s social hierarchy, the daughter her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. From the time of her first violent childhood confrontation with slavery, Sarah is unable to abide the oppression and brutality of the slave system that surrounds her. Ambitious and keenly intelligent, she harbors an intense longing to have a voice in the world and to follow her father and brothers’ footsteps to a profession in the law. Crushed by the strictures that her family and society impose on women, Sarah forges a tortuous, yet brave path toward

Slavery had an immense impact on African American families, as the familial dynamic of the African American family was in many ways responsible for the stereotypes surrounding black families in the present moment. Not only were families the sole property of their slave owner, but there were laws restricting their rights and privileges. However, despite the fact that the African American slave family existed in a perpetually tumultuous state, there were cohesive slave families, but they faced many struggles and challenges. In particular, black women were faced with incredible hardships with regard to sustaining the familial structure. This paper explores aspects of the African American family structure during slavery, considering the effect that slavery had on black women. The legacy of slavery in the present moment is also considered, in addition to whether slavery continues to exist.

Minrose Gwin‘s book, Black and White Women of the Old South, argues that history has problems with objectiveness. Her book brings to life interesting interpretations on the view of the women of the old south and chattel slavery in historical American fiction and autobiography. Gwin’s main arguments discussed how the white women of the south in no way wanted to display any kind of compassion for a fellow woman of African descent. Gwin described the "sisterhood" between black and white women as a "violent connection"(pg 4). Not only that, Gwin’s book discusses the idea that for most of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, a black woman usually got subjected to displacement of sexual and mental

The Abolitionists shows a long journey of ending the slavery. How they fought for the freedom for slaves and how they scarify what they had in the way of the human being equality. This documentary helps people to think about the long process that some people toke and they put their life in danger everyday by speaking against slavery. They main point of this story is in these people: Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimke, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Brown. Angelina Grimke was from a famous family in South Carolina. Each member of her family had their own slave but Angelina broke slave owning from her family. She was thinking that slavery is sin and God will punish the person who has slave. In 1829 she moved to North and she

In “An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States”, Angelina Grimke immediately addresses all women as her “Beloved Sisters”, white or black. She establishes her audience right away and attempts to connect them through the powerful use of the sisterhood mentality. She begins to remind all women of their important duties in the world and then questions why women are stripped of political rights and duties solely because they are women, even though they are a crucial part of society. She goes on to explain slavery as a brutish crime “by which man is robbed of his inalienable right to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the diadem of glory, and honor, with which he was crowned, and that sceptre of dominion which was placed in his hand when he was ushered upon the theater of creation.” (Grimke). Grimke uses this vivid explanation of slavery to connect the oppression of African-Americans to the oppression of women and how women cannot forget that it is their duty to help their fellow oppressed citizens, regardless of their skin color. She says that it is not only their moral duty but also their political duty to act as members of “The Great Human Family”. She then begins to specifically describe how slave women are