FREDERICK DOUGLASS WROTE “WHEN THE TRUE HISTORY OF THE ANTI-SLAVERY CAUSE SHALL BE WRITTEN WOMEN WILL OCCUPY A LARGE SPACE IN ITS PAGES”
Frederick Douglass wrote “When the true history of the anti-slavery cause shall be written women will occupy a large space in its pages”
At a time when the white male was considered superior to everyone else in society, such women as Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Sarah Parker Remond, the Grimke Sisters among others took it upon themselves to fight for the emancipation of slaves. They got involved in the abolitionist movement in a period when people regarded the domestic as the woman’s proper place. Women got deeply involved in abolitionist movements in the 1830s to an extent that it nearly caused a split in the male dominated American Anti-Slavery Society. Their contribution was so great that abolitionist men like Frederick Douglas even acknowledged their centrality in the abolitionist movement.
Quite a number of women even got positions in the anti-slavery societies’ active ranks. While black women went about informing other people about their experiences so as to elicit both empathy and action, the white women resolved to step into the public sphere to oppose the enslavement of African-Americans. The election of Abby Kelly into the Anti-Slavery Society split the Society. Later still, Lecretia Mott, Maria Weston Chapman and Lydia Maria Child got elected to the Society amid great opposition from the male members of the Society. A number of the committee members, including the president even had to resign from the Society because of this1.
The role of women in the abolitionist movement mainly involved the organization of local societies, circulation of tracts and petitions, influencing their husbands and friends, teaching black students, fundraising, and collection of supplies, challenging clergy and lecturing. Most of the white women abolitionists incorporated their interest for women rights with the push for abolition. The Grimke Sisters spoke against slavery despite their family’s take on the subject. Susan B. Anthony served in the American Anti-Slavery Society in an active capacity as general agent. Abby Kelly accompanied Frederick Douglas in his speaking tours, whereas Lucy Stone ensured fugitive slaves learnt how to read as well as to write.
The white female abolitionists were members of liberal religions such as the Universalists, Unitarians and Quakers that valued the spiritual equality of each person. However, there existed tension between these white suffragettes and their black female counterparts. Apart from the popular black women abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, others like Maria W. Stewart and Ellen Watkins Harper worked as great activists and even wrote about the experiences of women slaves, thus reaching a wider audience2. In the abolitionism movement, there were several white women than blacks because they had more freedom to move about, they had the income to enable them in their quest, and also had better education. The black women faced the risk of capture if it was reported that they were slaves on the run.
It was from the abolitionist movement that the early feminist movement received its moral tone as well as its political impetus. The white women abolitionists’ decision to involve the issue of women’s rights in the abolitionist movement is perceived to have been the formative progressive stage in the push for American feminism. When pondering about the lack of rights for slaves, some women abolitionists began comparing it with the lack of rights for women. It was due to the discrimination faced by some women in the anti-slavery societies that they undertook to fight for women rights.
It was at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 that the movement for women’s suffrage took shape. The organized movement was inspired by the prohibition of women into the anti-slavery convention, so that Lecretia and Stanton organized to host a woman’s rights convention in America. In 1848, they therefore held the Seneca Falls Convention, the first of its kind in America3.
