Read Part One HERE
In this post I continue to focus on a woman named Angelina Grimke Weld. She lived from 1805 - 1879.
Angelina was an active member of the Presbyterian Church. She taught a Sabbath school class and also provided religious services to her family's slaves - a practice her mother initially frowned upon, but later participated in. Angelina became a close friend of the pastor of her church, Rev. William MacDowell. McDowell was a Northener who had previously been the pastor of a Presbyterian church in New Jersey. Angelina and pastor McDowell were both opposed to the institution of slavery, on the grounds that it was a morally deficient system that violated Christian law and human rights. Pastor McDowell advocated patience and prayer over direct action, and argued that abolishing slavery "would create even worse evils." This position was unacceptable to young Angelina.
In 1829 she addressed the issue of slavery at a meeting in her church and said that all members of the congregation should openly condemn the practice. Because she was such an active member of the church community, her audience was respectful when it declined her proposal. By this time the church had come to terms with slavery, finding biblical justification and urging good Christian slaveholders to exercise paternalism and improve the treatment of their slaves. But Angelina lost faith in the values of the Presbyterian Church and in 1829 she was officially expelled.
With her sister Sarah's support, Angelina adopted the tenets of the Quaker faith. The Quaker community was very small in Charleston, and she quickly set out to reform her friends and family. However, given her self-righteous nature, her condescending comments about others tended to offend more than persuade. After deciding that she could not fight slavery while living in the South among white slave owners, she followed her older sister Sarah to Philadelphia.
Read Part Thirty-Nine HERE
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