Lift Up Thy Voice: The Grimke Family's Journeyfrom Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders Hardcover - 2001

From the publisher

In the late 1820s, Sarah and Angelina Grimke traded their elite position as daughters of a prominent slaveholding family in Charleston, South Carolina, for a life dedicated to abolitionism and advocacy of women's rights. The sisters became leaders in the anti-slavery movement, and their actions have had lasting repercussions on the way Americans strive for equality and social justice, even today. In 1868, Angelina and Sarah discovered that their deceased brother had had children by a slave. True to their ideals, the Grimke sisters invited their nephews into their lives, helped educate them, and gave them the means to start a new life. Archibald and Francis continued the fight for equality, becoming two of the most noted African Americans of their time. Francis, an influential Presbyterian minister, and Archibald, a lawyer, diplomat, writer, and editor, were deeply involved in the burgeoning civil rights movement and the founding of the NAACP. Archibald's daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke, became a seminal Harlem Renaissance poet and playwright.

At once a social history and family biography, Lift Up Thy Voice illustrates how the question of race dominates American history. Readers with a passion for American history, the Civil War, reform politics, and the early women's and civil rights movements will be fascinated by the inspiring tale of this remarkable family and its leadership over the century that made America what it is today.