At the memorial exercises for Abby Kelley Foster, in 1887, Lucy Stone said:
"The open door for higher education (Oberlin) was the gray dawn of our morning. Its sure day came when the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimk6 and Abby Kelley Foster began to speak publicly in behalf of the slaves. Public speaking by women was regarded as something monstrous. All the cyclones and blizzards which prejudice, bigotry and custom could raise, were let loose on these three peerless women. But they held fast to the Eternal Justice. Above the howling of the mobs, the din of the press and the thunders from the pulpit, they heard the wail of the slave and the cry of the mothers sold from their children. Literally taking their lives in their hands, they went out to speak, remembering those in bonds as bound with them.'
"In 1838, Angelina Grimke spoke in the House of Representatives in Massachusetts. It was packed as it probably never was before or since. The great crowd had gathered, some from their interest in the slave, more from curiosity to hear a woman, and some intent on making an uproar. But this quiet woman arose, utterly forgetful of self; with anointed lips, and with eloquence rare and wonderful she pleaded for the slave. The curious forgot their curiosity; the mobocrat dropped his brickbat before the solemn earnestness of this woman who, for the slave's sake, had braved the mob and the fagot; who could neither heed the uplifted finger that cried shame nor cease for the texts and the sermons, or the odium of the newspapers. To herself, she was not 'flying in the face of Providence.' It was no hunger for personal notoriety that had brought her there, but a great, earnest purpose that must find expression.
"How great a debt the woman's rights movement owes to her! But one such speech, or many, could not kill the hoary prejudice of ages; and circumstances soon compelled the sisters Grimke to leave the lecture field. Abby Kelley remained to bear alone the opprobrium still heaped upon the woman who so far departed from her sphere as to speak in public. Whatever of tribulation any of us have known in the advocacy of this reform, it has been play compared with the long, unrelieved moral torture endured by Abby Kelley, in the battle which finally secured the right of free speech for every woman. A sharp onset with shot and shell is no trifle; but to stand year after year, as Abby Kelley stood, in the thick of the fight, while pulpit and press, editors and clergy, poured upon her vials of bitterness and wrath, to which falsehood always resorts, required the courage of a martyr and the faith of a saint. If she had been a weak woman, she would have yielded and fled. Think what it would be to live perpetually in the midst of scorn and reproach; to go to church and find the sermon directed against you, from the text denouncing Jezebel; and, with no chance to reply, to sit and hear all manner of lies told about you; at another time, to meet with intolerable insult under the very roof of the house where you were authorized to seek shelter, so that you fled from it, fasting for thirty-six hours. These things were actual incidents in her experience, and only a small part of what she endured. If she had been less noble, or more self-seeking, she would have abandoned the terrible pioneer's post and taken an easier way.
"The great service Abby Kelley rendered the slave is less than that by which, at such a price, she earned for us all the right of free speech. Long after this right was conceded, the effect of the old odium lingered, and she was regarded by those who did not know her as a pestilent person, no better than she should be. Even as late as the Worcester Woman's Rights Convention in 185o, the managers of the meeting conferred beforehand as to whether it was best to invite her to speak, 'She is so odious.' She was allowed to be present; and I shall never forget the thrilling voice in which she said, 'Sisters, bloody feet have worn smooth the path by which you come up here!' It was her own bleeding feet that had worn the way."
In those early days, it was considered improper not only for a woman to speak in public, but even for her to hold office in an association formed for a benevolent purpose. When Abby Kelley, in 1838, was appointed on a committee of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, it split the association in twain. Eight Congregational ministers withdrew immediately, and a new organization was formed by the seceders.
Lucy followed the controversy with the keenest interest. In 1838 she wrote to her brother Bowman:
"I would like to have you read John Q. Adams's remarks on the Misses Grimke. He says in the controversy that is begun he wishes them well; but Mr. Bartlett has 'S. M. Grimke on The Rights of Women' in pamphlet form, and if you could read that (and she says nothing but what she proves), I guess you would not think that I was too 'obstreperous.' I tell you, they are first-rate, and only help to confirm the resolution I had made before, to call no man master."
Lucy studied and taught by turns. She would teach until she had saved up a little money and then use it to study further. She was able to go for one term to the Quaboag Seminary at Warren, Massachusetts, and later, for a short time, to Wilbraham Academy. She wrote from Wilbraham to her brother on June 18, 1840:
"You ask if I am a friend of such a 'New Organization' as I find an account of in your last paper. (This was the organization formed by the members of the Anti-Slavery Society who objected to any public work by women.) No, brother, I am not. If that is the spirit of the N. O., I am far enough from being its friend. There seems to be no feeling of Liberty about it. Its great object seems to be to crush Garrison and the women. While it pretends to endeavor to remove the yoke of bondage on account of color, it is actually summoning all its energies to rivet more firmly the chains that have always been fastened upon the neck of women. Look at the ridiculous conduct of H. G. Ludlow, at the anniversary of the Anti-Slavery Society of New Haven. If a woman would 'open her mouth for the dumb', she sha'n't. If she would let her voice speak, the cry is raised again, 'It shall not be allowed.' Thus the inalienable right that God had given is wrested from her, and the talent, or, if you please, half talent entrusted to her keeping for improvement, is violently taken away; and H. G. L., becoming the keeper of her conscience, must also answer for her at the Day of Judgment. Hear him answering to ' Where is the half talent I gave her?" Lord, thinking I knew better than Thou didst, and believing that might gave right, I violently took it from her, though she strove hard to maintain it. Lo, here Thou hast ', etc. Must he not have an answer similar to one of whom we read, who hid his Lord's money? Yet he says, ' I have the spirit of God. I am a Christian.'
"I admire the calm and noble bearing of Abby Kelley on that occasion, and cannot but wish there were more kindred spirits.
"Only let females be educated in the same manner and with the same advantages that males have, and, as everything in nature seeks its own level, I would risk that we would find out our 'appropriate sphere.'
"I am well, and am doing well in my studies.
"Miss Adams and I walked out to Springfield last Saturday, and back again, the whole distance being nearly twenty-five miles. We do not feel any inconvenience from it.
"I have been examining the doctrine of Christian Perfection, and I cannot avoid the conclusion that it is attainable in this life.
"Will you, when you can, consistently with your other duties, write me what you think about the immortality of the spirit of beasts, and, if you think they are not, tell