From the pen of Angelina Grimke:

One of the classes I am taking this semester is Women's Rhetoric in the 19th Century, discussing how women worked to incite other women to work for social justice causes (such as abolition and temperance) and eventually for themselves in the suffrage movement. It almost goes without saying that a lot of the material we read in that class could be applied to the current fight against underground human trafficking and slavery. Indeed, in a long open letter (40 pages) that Angelina Grimke wrote to "Christian Women of the South," there were numerous passages that I underlined and starred as they applied so perfectly to the thoughts of the anti-slavery movement happening right now. So, I will let Angelina do my speaking for me for the rest of this post, and my reason is that you should note how so much of this Truth speaks to a problem still extant in our world today: mainly that we humans have trouble learning the rule of "love thy neighbor." A fight like this requires renewal of belief in that one law - that my fellow human being is worthy of being shown love merely because they are human - everyday.

"[Y]et man is never vested with this dominion over his fellow man; he was never told that any of the human species were put under his feet; it was only all things, and man, who was created in the image of his Maker, never can properly be termed a thing, though the laws of the Slave States do call him a 'chattel personal': Man then, I assert never was put under the feet of man, by that first charter of human rights which was given by God, to the Fathers of the Antediluvian and Postdiluvian worlds, therefore this doctrine of equality is based upon the Bible.

[...]

Try yourselves by another of the Divine precepts, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.' Can we love a man as we love ourselves; if we do, and continue to do unto him, what we would not wish any one to do to us? Look too, at Christ's example, what does he say of himself, 'I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.' Can you for a moment imagine the meek, and lowly, and compassionate Saviour, a Slaveholder? Do you not shudder at this thought as much as at that of his being a warrior? But why, if slavery is not sinful?

[...]

And you are now loudly called upon by the cries of the widow and the orphan, to arise and gird yourselves for this great moral conflict, with the whole armor of righteousness upon the right hand and on the left.

[...]

This monster of iniquity has been unveiled to the world, her frightful features unmasked, and soon, very soon will she be regarded with no more complacency by the American republic than is the idol of Juggernaut, rolling its bloody wheels over the crushed bodies of its prostrate victims.

[...]

Until the pictures of the slaves' sufferings were drawn and held up to public gaze, no Northerner had any idea of the cruelty of the system, it had never entered their minds that such abominations could exist in Christian, Republican America; they never suspected that many of the gentlemen and ladies who came from the South to spend the summer months in travelling among them, were petty tyrants at home.

[...]

What can I say more, my friends, to induce you to set your hands and heads and hearts, to this great work of justice and mercy[?]"


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We received our flight details this last week, so I will be scheduling flights home/to/from Newark within the next few weeks. Our donation deadlines have also changed, which gives me another month to raise more money (Praise God for that!). I now have $1500 due on November 1st, $500 on December 1st, and $500 when we leave. The Donate button in the sidebar is still open and active! And you can watch my donation progress in the little temperature thing, also in the sidebar.

I also have to turn in my Visa application soon, so pray that all of that goes smoothly and I don't get rejected for some unbeknownst to me skeleton in my closet from years back. :|

Thanks for reading!