But Abolitionists are complained of, because they, at the same time, fearlessly exposed the sin of the unreasonable and unholy prejudice which existed against these injured ones.
Angelina Emily Grimké
The Public Record
Angelina Emily Grimké Weld was an American abolitionist, political activist, women's rights advocate, and supporter of the women's suffrage movement. At one point she was the best known, or "most notorious," woman in the country. She and her sister Sarah Moore Grimké were considered the only notable examples of white Southern women abolitionists. The sisters lived together as adults, while Angelina was the wife of abolitionist leader Theodore Dwight Weld.
gutenberg.org
Couldst thou think so, if thou really loved thy colored sisters as thyself?
The manner in which they are thrust into one corner of our meeting-houses, as if the plague-spot was on their skins; the rudeness and cruelty with which they are treated in our hotels, and steamboats, rail road cars and stages, is no just…
When things are ridiculous as well as wicked, it is unreasonable to expect that every cast of mind will treat them with solemnity.
And what is more ridiculous than American prejudice; to proscribe and persecute men and women, because their complexions are of a darker hue than our own?
Grimké remarked only a few weeks before his death, ‘posterity will laugh at our prejudices.’ Where is the harm, then, if abolitionists should laugh now at the wicked absurdity?
Thou sayest, ‘this tended to irritate the whites, and to increase their prejudices against the blacks.’ The truth always irritates the proud, impenitent sinner.
So we must bear the guilt of man’s angry passions, because the truth we preach is like a two-edged sword, cutting through the bonds of interest on the one side, and the cords of caste on the other.
With regard to prejudice, I believe the truth of the case to be this: the rights of the colored man never were advocated by any body of men in their length and breadth, before the rise of the Anti-Slavery Society in this country.
It has developed the latent principles of pride and prejudice, not produced them.
No, my friend, they acted precisely upon the false principle which thou hast recommended; their pity was excited, their sentiments of generosity were called into exercise, because they regarded the colored man as an unfortunate inferior…
The great fundamental principle of Abolitionists is, that man cannot rightfully hold his fellow man as property.