Another Look at the Grimke Sisters

Many of you will remember Sue Monk Kidd’s historical novel The Invention of Wings. in the book Kidd described the horrors of slavery that went on right here in Charleston!! Furthermore, she introduced many to the forgotten and/or buried legacies of two women who were members of the family portrayed in the novel. They were known as the Grimke sisters, and they left their privileged lives in Charleston to become abolitionists in the north. They wrote about freedom, they spoke about abolition and they supported their two nephews, who were the chidlren of their brother and an enslaved African woman who worked in his household. Tour guides in Charleston capitalized on the popularity of the story; and, as the sisters became heroines, they put together Grimke Sisters Tours, taking folks to the places the Grimke family lived, went to church and sent their slaves for punishment.

Now Kerri K. Greenidge, an Assistant Professor at Tufts University, has written an expansive history of the entire Grimke family, including the famous sisters but also tracing the nephews and their families into the mid 20th century. Greenidge teaches at Tufts in the Department of Studies in Race, Colonialism and Diaspora. The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family is more than a history book or a family story. It explores the complicated relationships in mixed race families and the strangling legacy of slavery. As Michael P. Jeffries wrote in the New York Times Book Review, “Greenidge takes the Grimke sisters off their pedestal so that we understand them as pieces of a tapestry that could only be sewn in America. Pain , guilt, and yearning lie at the seams, holding the family together and tearing it apart.”