When I grow up, I want to be like the Grimke Sisters, I think. (I took these photos of their portraits while walking the slave cabins at Boone Hall Plantation, in Mount Pleasant, SC)

Sarah Grimké (1792-1873) and Angelina Grimké Weld (1805-1879), known as the Grimké sisters, were 19th-century American Quakers, educators and writers who were early advocates of abolitionism and women’s rights.

They were born in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Sarah Moore Grimke was born on November 26, 1792 and Angelina Emily Grimke was born on November 26, 1805. Throughout their lives, they traveled throughout the North, lecturing about their first hand experiences with slavery on their family’s plantation. Among the first women to act publicly in social reform movements, they received abuse and ridicule for their abolitionist activity. They both realized that women would have to create a safe space in the public arena to be effective reformers. They became early activists in the women’s rights movement.