Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873) and Angelina Emily Grimké (1805–1879), known as the Grimké sisters, were the first nationally-known white American female advocates of abolition of slavery and women's rights. They were speakers, writers, and educators. They grew up in a slave-owning family in South Carolina, and in their twenties, became part of Philadelphia’s substantial Quaker society. They became deeply involved with the abolitionist movement, traveling on its lecture circuit and recounting their firsthand experiences with slavery on their family's plantation. Among the first American women to act publicly in social reform movements, they were ridiculed for their abolitionist activity. They became early activists in the women's rights movement. They eventually founded a private school. After discovering that their late brother had had three mixed-race sons, whose mother was one of his slaves, they helped the boys get education in the North. Archibald and Francis J. Grimké stayed in the North, Francis becoming a Presbyterian minister, but their younger brother John returned to the South. Early life and education Judge John Faucheraud Grimké, the father of the Grimké sisters, was strong advocate of slavery. A wealthy planter who held hundreds of slaves, Grimké had 14 children with his wife and had at least three children from enslaved women. (See Children of the plantation.) Three of the children died in infancy. Grimké served as chief judge of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Sarah was the sixth child, and Angelina was the thirteenth. Sarah said that at age five after she saw a slave being whipped, she tried to board a steamer to a place where there was no slavery. Later, in violation of the law, she taught her personal slave to read. Sarah wanted to become a lawyer and follow in her father's footsteps. She studied the books in her father's library constantly, teaching herself geography, history, and mathematics, but her father would not allow her to learn Latin, or go to college with her brother Thomas, who was at Yale Law School. Still, her father appreciated her keen intelligence, and told her that if she had been a man, she would have been the greatest lawyer in South Carolina. After completing her studies, Sarah begged her parents to allow her to become Angelina's godmother. She became a role model to her younger sibling, and the two sisters had a close relationship all their lives. Angelina often called Sarah "mother". Sarah