wheeler joan

Artist Statement

The Grimke Sisters were raised in a southern slave-owning family and saw the horrors of slavery first hand. As young women they moved to Philadelphia and joined the Quakers. They became outspoken abolitionists and women's rights advocates. They were among the first American women to lecture publicly to mixed gender audiences, a radical act that challenged not only slavery but the legal and cultural silencing of women. Their published essays laid the intellectual groundwork for the Womens Rights movement decades before Seneca Falls. They also exposed the intimate gendered violence of slavery, speaking about the sexual exploitation of enslaved women. They were persecuted and publicly attacked for their views and fording to speak out as women, but persevered in their work.