Sarah Moore (1792-1873) and Angelina Emily (1805-1879) Grimké were antislavery leaders and early agitators for woman's rights.

Sarah Grimké was born on Nov. 29, 1792, and Angelina Grimké was born on Feb. 20, 1805; their father was a distinguished South Carolina jurist. Partly through the influence of their older brother Thomas, who was prominent in temperance and pacifist reforms, and partly from their own religious beliefs, the sisters early opposed slavery, although the family owned several slaves.

On a trip to Philadelphia in 1819 Sarah was converted to Quakerism and later so was Angelina Grimké. They settled in Philadelphia in the 1820s. The Quakers' passivity failed to satisfy energetic Angelina. After reading William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator , she wrote to him and then wrote a pamphlet, which the abolitionist press eagerly published. Her An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836) urged her Southern sisters to...