Performance will take place at the Old Meeting House at First Parish of Groton

When 26 year-old Sarah Moore Grimke boarded a ship from Charleston to Philadelphia in 1819 to accompany her ailing father north, she embarked on a history making journey that took her from failed Southern belle to pioneering abolitionist and women’s rights activist.

Born into the Southern gentry, Sarah’s abhorrence of slavery and devotion to God led her to convert to Quakerism and settle in Philadelphia where her charismatic and irrepressible younger sister Angelina Emily Grimke later joined her. After many tumultuous years within the Society of Friends, Sarah then followed Angelina north to New York, where the two rose to public prominence and national notoriety by doing the largely unprecedented: daring to speak their minds.

In a time when no "respectable woman" would utter a word of public discourse, the Grimke sisters became among the first women in America to conduct a lecture tour. What began as ladies gatherings in private parlors soon grew to packed audiences of men and women held spellbound by the sisters’ calls for immediate abolition of the enslaved and then, even more radically, equal rights for women.

During their meteoric rise to fame, Sarah published Letters on the Equality of the Sexes, and the Condition of Woman, one of the earliest tracts in American history on the personal rights and public responsibilities of women. Two of the letters in that series were posted from Groton in the summer of 1837. That same summer, the sisters were made unnamed subjects within a pastoral letter issued by the General Association of Congregational Ministers of Massachusetts in which women were cautioned to refrain from behaviors contrary to their nature and unbefitting their sphere.

In this program, Chris Potts returns Sarah to Groton. By telling Sarah's story in Sarah's voice, Chris immerses the audience in a compelling vocal performance of both deeply personal stories and impassioned public sentiments that helped forge Sarah's path to human rights activism and established her place among the greatest reformers in Amercian history.

With a background in academia and performative storytelling, Chris taught courses in writing and women's studies at universities at home and abroad and has performed and taught storytelling for audiences of all ages. She first developed the idea to research the life and interpret the story of Sarah Grimke in 2019 after leading a program on female suffragists at the Historical Society of Harford County, where she now serves as Executive Director. Chris lives in Bel Air, MD, with her husband and dog.

Generously sponsored by the Lecture Fund from the Commissioners of the Trust. Presented in partnership with the Groton Historical Society and Groton Neighbors.