Analysis of "An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States" by Angelina Grimke

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In "An Appeal To The Women of the Nominally Free States", Angelina Grimke, an American abolitionist and women's rights advocate in the 1800s, talks passionately about the mistreatment of black women in the North and South. Grimke had a deep commitment to women’s moral equality and was unique because she was a white southerner who lived her life in the North and cared very much about women slavery and racism. In her appeal, she criticizes Southern women for oppressing black women, but she is especially critical of the Northern women due to the hypocrisy that they are guilty of. The Northern women say they are abolitionists, but in reality they are not sympathetic to the prejudice and cruelty of the black woman around them. Throughout her appeal, Grimke repeatedly states that all women “are our sisters”, because she wants everyone to realize that all women are women no matter what color they are. Grimke criticizes white women in the North for looking away and not acting compassionately toward “their colored sisters” while horrible things happen to them. She states that “our colored sisters are dreadfully oppressed” in America and those women have to stand up for them. If women decide not to act, then they may as well be termed “the white slaves of the North”. She wants northern women to stop being ignorant, stop pretending like they have nothing to do with slavery and start working together to fight the injustice that is present in their lives. The title of the appeal is, “An appeal to the women of the nominally free states”, meaning that the people in the North say that they are free, but technically, they are just like the people in the South. Grimke pleads that the northern white woman will “subdue the deep-rooted prejudice” that is oppressing the black woman in the so-called “free states”. When this has been done in the North, then the she urges the

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