Question

How did Grimke being a Southerner and a women influence the speech?

What is the legacy and significance of Grimke's speech?

Answer 1

Angelina Grimke was an American nationalist, political activist, women's right advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimke are the only white Southern women who became abolitionists. Speaking as a southern woman who had seen the firsthand demoralizing influence of slavery and its harmful effect on human happiness, Grimke gave an inspiring speech at Pennsylvania Hall amidst a tumult fo rocks thrown the window and the shouting of an unruly mob.

Grimke empovers herself and her women listners through the act of speaking. Her speech transforms then current definitions of womnes proper role through therelated and mutually reinforcing concepts of enactment and iconicity, continuing to provide a model of empowerment to the oppressed.