Slavery in the Family.

Slavery; Families; Lynching; Personal names; Women's rights; Feminism; Slave trade

Although earlier treatments hailed the sisters' successes, Greenidge finds these vitiated by Sarah and Angelina's unacknowledged "complicity in the slave system they so eloquently spoke against." Greenidge leaves the stature of Sarah, Angelina, Archie, and Frank diminished, but she offers an enriched view of the extended Black Grimke family. The Grimkes begins and ends with a portrait of Angelina Weld-Grimke, the only child of Archibald and his white wife and an often-overlooked figure in the Grimke lineage. They were embraced and supported by their activist aunts, who had not known of their existence during their early years of bondage, which included brutal beatings and abuse from their white half brother, another of Sarah and Angelina's nephews. [Extracted from the article]