SISTERS AND BROTHERS

by Janet Stevenson ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 1966

This is the story of the two timid sisters, Angelina and Sarah Grimke, actual figures who became the first women who dared to speak in public, first for abolition and then for women's rights. It is also the story of their colored nephew, Archibald Grimke, who become a distinguished author and crusader for Negro advancement. As the novel opens, Angelina, how a weary, retired crusader and mother of two, discovers that a young student at Lincoln University, a college dedicated to the education of the Negro, bears their family name. As her tentative, probing letter arrives, Archy and his brother Frank must confront their past and the father's name that was never spoken. Flashback scenes reveal the South in the throes of the Civil War and its effect on them. They also reveal an indomitable and moving figure--Mauma, her spirit and love for the man who gave them birth and the terrible consequences. Angelina and Sarah are also having their reminiscences and we enter into the focal area of the heated abolitionist movement with Angelina, the fiery speaker with a conviction that carried her to the floor of the Boston legislature itself, while the less gifted but sturdy Sarah lent support. As the family confrontation grows near, each individual must come to terms with himself. Angelina must find a new perspective on the spectre of the ""Black Sister"" that has both haunted and helped her in the past and Archy and Frank must reconcile with their white blood. It's a well done historical portrait and its revelance to the Civil Rights movement should give it a readership. By the author of the successful Weep No More.

Pub Date: March 8, 1966

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1966

Categories: FICTION