fbpx
Wikipedia

Sarah Parker Remond

Sarah Parker Remond (June 6, 1826 – December 13, 1894) was an American lecturer, activist and abolitionist campaigner.

Sarah Parker Remond
Born(1826-06-06)June 6, 1826
Salem, Massachusetts, United States
DiedDecember 13, 1894(1894-12-13) (aged 68)
Alma materBedford College
Hospital of Santa Maria Nuova
Occupation(s)Activist, physician
SpouseLazzaro Pintor
Parent(s)John Remond (father)
Nancy Lenox (mother)
RelativesCharles Lenox Remond (brother)
Caroline Remond Putnam (sister)
Cecilia Remond Putnam (sister)
Marchita Remond (sister)

Born a free woman in the state of Massachusetts, she became an international activist for human rights and women's suffrage. Remond made her first public speech against the institution of slavery when she was 16 years old, and delivered abolitionist speeches throughout the northeastern United States. One of her brothers, Charles Lenox Remond, became known as an orator and they occasionally toured together for their abolitionist lectures.

Eventually becoming an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, in 1858 Remond chose to travel to Britain to gather support for the growing abolitionist cause in the United States. While in London, Remond also studied at Bedford College, lecturing during term breaks. During the American Civil War, she appealed for support among the British public for the Union and their blockade of the Confederacy. After the conclusion of the war in favor of the Union, she appealed for funds to support the millions of the newly emancipated freedmen in the American South.

From England, Remond went to Italy in 1867 to pursue medical training in Florence, where she became a physician. She practiced medicine for nearly 20 years in Italy and never returned to the United States, dying in Rome at the age of 68.

Early years edit

Born in Salem, Massachusetts, Remond was one of the between eight and 11 children of John Remond and Nancy (née Lenox) Remond.[1] Nancy was born in Newton, daughter of Cornelius Lenox, a Revolutionary War veteran who had fought in the Continental Army, and Susanna Perry.[2] John Remond was a free person of color who immigrated to Massachusetts from the Dutch colony of Curaçao as a 10-year-old child in 1798. John and Nancy married in October 1807, in the African Baptist Church in Boston. In Salem, they built a successful catering, provisioning, and hairdressing business, becoming well-established businesspeople and activists.[1]

The Remonds tried to place their children in a private school, but they were rejected because of their race. When Sarah Remond and her sisters were accepted to a local high school for girls which was not segregated, they were expelled, as the school committee was planning to found a separate school for African-American children. Remond later described the incident as engraved in her heart "like the scarlet letter of Hester."[1] In 1835, the Remond family moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where they hoped to find a less racist environment in which to educate their children. However, the schools refused to accept black students. Instead, some influential African Americans established a private school, where Remond was educated.[1]

In 1841, the Remond family returned to Salem.[1] Sarah Remond continued her education on her own, attending concerts and lectures, and reading widely in books, pamphlets and newspapers borrowed from friends, or purchased from the anti-slavery society of her community, which sold many inexpensive titles.[3] The Remond family also took in as boarders students who were attending the local girls' academy, including Charlotte Forten (later Grimké).[4]

Three of Remond's sisters built a business together: Cecilia (married to James Babcock), Maritchie Juan, and Caroline (married to Joseph Putnam),[4] "owned the fashionable Ladies Hair Work Salon" in Salem, as well as the biggest wig factory in the state.[5] Their oldest sister Nancy married James Shearman, an oyster dealer. The Remond brothers were Charles Remond, who became an abolitionist and orator; and John Remond, who married Ruth Rice, one of two women elected to the finance committee of the 1859 New England Colored Citizens' Convention.[4][1]

Anti-slavery activism and lecturing edit

Salem in the 1840s was a center of anti-slavery activity, and the whole family was committed to the rising abolitionist movement in the United States. The Remonds' home was a haven for black and white abolitionists, and they hosted many of the movement's leaders, including William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips, and more than one fugitive slave fleeing north to freedom. John Remond was a life member of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.[2] Sarah Remond's older brother Charles Lenox Remond was the first black lecturer of the American Anti-Slavery Society's and considered a leading black abolitionist. Nancy Remond was one of the founders of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society.[1] Nancy not only taught her daughters the household skills of cooking and sewing but also to seek liberty lawfully; she wanted them to take part in society.[3] With her mother and sisters, Sarah Remond was an active member of the state and county female anti-slavery societies, including the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, the New England Anti-Slavery Society, and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. She also regularly attended antislavery lectures in Salem and Boston.[2]

With the support and financial backing of her family, Sarah Remond became an anti-slavery lecturer, delivering her first lecture against slavery at the age of 16, with her brother Charles in Groton, Massachusetts, in July 1842.[6] Remond rose to prominence among abolitionists in 1853, when she refused to sit in a segregated theater section. She had bought tickets by post for herself and a group of friends, including historian William C. Nell, to the popular opera, Don Pasquale, at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston.[7] When they arrived at the theatre, Remond was shown to segregated seating. After refusing to accept it, she was forced to leave the theatre and pushed down some stairs.[3] Remond sued for damages and won her case. She was awarded $500, and an admission by theatre management that she was wronged; the court ordered the theater to integrate all seating.[7][8]

In 1856, the American Anti-Slavery Society hired a team of lecturers, including Remond; Charles, already well known in the U.S. and Britain; and Susan B. Anthony, to tour New York State addressing anti-slavery issues. Over the next two years, she, her brother, and others also spoke in New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania.[2] She and other African Americans were often given poor accommodation due to racial discrimination.[3] Although inexperienced, Remond rapidly became an effective speaker. William Lloyd Garrison praised her "calm, dignified manner, her winning personal appearance and her earnest appeals to the conscience and the heart."[9] Sarah Clay wrote that Remond's every word "waked up dormant aspirations which would vibrate through the ages."[1] Over time, she became one of the society's most persuasive and powerful lecturers.[10]

Abby Kelley Foster, a noted abolitionist in Massachusetts, encouraged Remond when they toured together in 1857.[11] On December 28, 1858, Remond wrote in a letter to Foster:[12]

I feel almost sure I never should have made the attempt but for the words of encouragement I received from you. Although my heart was in the work, I felt that I was in need of a good English education ... When I consider that the only reason why I did not obtain what I so much desired was because I was the possessor of an unpopular complexion, it adds to my discomfort.

Anti-slavery lecturing in Great Britain edit

 
Frederick Douglass, circa 1879. Remond and Douglass toured together in Britain.

As a good speaker and fundraiser, Remond was invited to take the cause of the American abolitionists to Britain, as her brother Charles had done 10 years earlier. Accompanied by the Reverend Samuel May Jr., she sailed from Boston for Liverpool on December 28, 1858, on the steamer Arahia. They arrived in Liverpool on January 12, 1859, after a discomforting trip in the winter. The ship had become covered with ice and snow, and rolled and tossed so much that many of the passengers became ill, including Remond.[3] At Tuckerman Institute on January 21, 1859, Remond gave her first antislavery lecture in England. Her second lecture, "Slave Life in America," took place just a few days later on January 24. During these speeches, she spoke eloquently of the inhumane treatment of slaves in the United States, her stories shocking many of her listeners. She also described the discrimination endured by free blacks throughout the United States.[1]

For the next three years, Remond lectured to crowds in several other towns and cities throughout the British Isles (including Warrington, Manchester, London, and Leeds),[13] raising large sums of money for the anti-slavery cause. Between 1859 and 1861, she gave more than 45 lectures in England, Ireland, and Scotland.[2] Remond also appeared at times with Frederick Douglass.[1] In 1860, at the invitation of the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society, she gave a lecture in Edinburgh that was "crowded to the door by a most respectable audience, number upwards of 2000", whose consciences she awakened to a deepened "abhorrence of the sin of Slavery".[14] Although before she sailed to the UK, Remond expected to confront prejudice similar as what she encountered in the United States – writing to Abby Kelly Foster that she feared not "the wind nor the waves, but I know that no matter how I go, the spirit of prejudice will meet me" – she met with a greater acceptance in Britain. "I have been received here as a sister by white women for the first time in my life," she wrote; "I have received a sympathy I never was offered before."[1]

Remond was praised for her speeches, in which she spoke out against slavery and racial discrimination, stressing the sexual exploitation of black women under slavery.[1] Remond called on common themes found in sentimental fiction, such as family, womanhood, and marriage, to evoke an emotional response in her audience.[15] In her short autobiography, written in 1861, she observed that "prejudice against colour has always been the one thing, above all others, which has cast its gigantic shadow over my whole life."[16][self-published source] During her speaking tours of the British Isles, Remond and her fellow U.S. abolitionists drew comparisons between American slavery and the plight of the British working class during the Industrial Revolution, leading to abolitionists in Britain to note that their lectures were "packed almost entirely by [the] working class".[17]

Once the American Civil War (1861–1865) began, Remond worked to build support in Britain for the Union blockade of the Confederacy and the Union cause. Because British textile factories relied heavily on American cotton from the Southern United States, Remond focused on this in her lectures. In an 1862 speech, she implored her London audience to "Let no diplomacy of statesmen, no intimidation of slaveholders, no scarcity of cotton, no fear of slave insurrections, prevent the people of Great Britain from maintaining their position as the friend of the oppressed negro."[18] After the conclusion of the Civil War, Remond changed her focus to lecture on behalf of the millions of freedmen in the United States, soliciting funds and clothing for them. She was an active member of the London Emancipation Society and the Freedman's Aid Association in London. Her lecture "The Freeman or the Emancipated Negro of the Southern States of the United States," delivered in London, was published in The Freedman (London) in 1867.[3] In the mid-1860s, Remond published a letter from London in the Daily News protesting that racial prejudice had worsened thanks to the efforts of planters in the West Indies and the American South.[19]

Education and later years edit

 
Remond is interred at the Cimitero Acattolico in Rome.

From October 1859 to June 1861, Remond undertook studies at Bedford College (later part of the University of London and now merged with Royal Holloway College). She studied classical academic subjects: French, Latin, English literature, music, history and elocution,[20] continuing to give her own lectures during college vacations.[21] During this period, she also traveled to Rome and Florence in Italy.[6]

Remond continued to be involved in the abolitionist and feminist causes in Britain. She was a member first of the London Emancipation Committee, and then helped found and served on the executive committee of the Ladies' London Emancipation Society, which was organized in 1863.[1] Remond is thought to be the only black woman[22] who was among the 1500 signatories to a women-only 1866 petition requesting the right of women to vote.[23] Returning briefly to the U.S., Remond joined with the American Equal Rights Association working for equal suffrage for women and African Americans.[21]

Remond continued her studies at London University College, graduating as a nurse.[1] In 1866, she left England and, after visiting Switzerland, in 1867, at the age of 42, she moved permanently to Florence.[13] She entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital school as a medical student.[7] At the time, the school was one of the most prestigious medical schools in Europe.[1] Remond graduated in August 1868.[24] After completing her studies and becoming a doctor, she remained in Florence for many years, then resided in Rome.[11] Remond practiced medicine for more than 20 years, never returning to the United States. Her sister Caroline and Maritcha joined her from the United States.[1] Frederick Douglass met the three women while visiting Rome in 1886.[25]

In Italy, on April 25, 1877, Remond married Lazzaro Pintor (1833–1913), an Italian office worker originally from Sardinia.[1] By the 1880s, Remond Pintor had moved to Rome.[1] Remond died on December 13, 1894, in Rome. She is interred at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome.[26]

Tribute edit

In 1999 the Massachusetts State House honored six outstanding women of the state by installing a series of six tall marble panels with a bronze bust in each; the busts are of Remond, Dorothea Dix, Florence Luscomb, Mary Kenney O'Sullivan, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, and Lucy Stone.[27][28] Two quotations from each of these women are etched on their own marble panel. The wall behind the panels has wallpaper made of six government documents repeated over and over, with each document being related to a cause of one or more of the women.[27][28]

The 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa, edited by Margaret Busby, includes two pieces by Sarah Parker Remond: "Why Slavery is Still Rampant" and "The Negro Race in America" (a letter to the editor of The Daily News, London, in 1866).[29][30] Additionally, her legacy informs Delia Jarrett-Macauley's contribution to the anthology, "The Bedford Women", which recounts Remond's story.[31]

In 2020, the University College London renamed its Centre for the Study of Racism & Racialisation the "UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre", with Professor Paul Gilroy as its Founding Director.[32]

The best-selling novel, La linea del colori: Il Grand Tour di Lafanu Brown, by Somalian writer Igiaba Scego (Florence: Giunti, 2020), in Italian, combines the characters of African-American sculptor Edmonia Lewis and Sarah Parker Remond and is dedicated to Rome and to these two figures.[33][34]

In 2021, the University of Chester detailed plans to relocate the majority of its teaching provision to Warrington town center, housed in a property newly renamed the Sarah Parker Remond Building.[35][36] In April 2023, the relocation was celebrated with the unveiling of a blue heritage plaque in honor of Remond.[37]

In September 2021, Remond was honored in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, where she spoke on her 1859–1860 tour of England and Ireland campaigning on the evils of enslavement, having been invited by Elizabeth Dawson of the Wakefield Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.[38][39][40] After Remond delivered her lecture, the mixed-gender Wakefield Anti-Slavery Association was established on January 12, 1860, at the Corn Exchange.[38][41]

In 2022, the unveiling in London of a Nubian Jak Community Trust commemorative blue plaque in her honour was announced,[42] taking place on March 25.[43][44]

In 2023 The Guardian commissioned a portrait of Remond by Claudette Johnson as part of its Cotton Capital project.[45][46]

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Sirpa, Salenius (2016). An Abolitionist Abroad: Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9781613764817. OCLC 1012312578.
  2. ^ a b c d e Porter, Dorothy Burnett (October 1985). "The Remonds of Salem, Massachusetts: A Nineteenth-Century Family Revisited" (PDF). Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. Boston. 95 (2).
  3. ^ a b c d e f Hine, Darlene Clark; Brown, Elsa Barkley; Terborg-Penn, Rosalyn (1993). "Sarah Parker Remond (1826–1894)". Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia. Vol. II M-Z. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-926019-61-9.
  4. ^ a b c Grimké, Charlotte Forten (1988). "People in the Journals". In Stevenson, Brenda E. (ed.). The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimké. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. xli–xlix. ISBN 0-19-505238-2.
  5. ^ Rooks, Noliwe M. (1996). Hair Raising: Beauty, Culture and African-American Women. Rutgers University Press. p. 24. ISBN 9780813523125.
  6. ^ a b Bethel, Kari. "Remond, Sarah Parker (1826–1894) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved February 6, 2019.
  7. ^ a b c "Sarah Parker Remond and the Remonds of Salem", Variety, Spice, Life, 20 July 2011.
  8. ^ May 4, 1853: Sarah Remond Ejected from Boston Theater
  9. ^ Sterling, Dorothy, ed. (1984). We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. W.W. Norton & Company. p. 176. ISBN 9780393316292. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  10. ^ "Remond at Bedford College in London", Sarah Parker Remond: A Daughter of Salem, Massachusetts, July 15, 2011.
  11. ^ a b Sterling, Dorothy (1994). Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 276. ISBN 9780393311310.
  12. ^ Sterling, Dorothy, ed. (1984). "Women with a Special Mission". We are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 176. ISBN 9780393316292.
  13. ^ a b Coleman, Willi (October 4, 2009). "Remond, Sarah Parker (1826–1894)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/100414. Retrieved March 25, 2022. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  14. ^ "African American Activists in Scotland – Sarah Parker Remond". Struggles for Liberty: African American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic World. Retrieved July 23, 2023.
  15. ^ Salenius, Sirpa (April 12, 2017). "Transatlantic Interracial Sisterhoods: Sarah Remond, Ellen Craft, and Harriet Jacobs in England". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. 38 (1): 166–196. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0166. ISSN 1536-0334. S2CID 164419591.
  16. ^ Miller Sr., Connie A. (2008). Frederick Douglass American Hero: and International Icon of The Nineteenth Century. Xlibris. p. 343. ISBN 9781441576491. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  17. ^ Zackodnick, Teresa (2011). Press, Platform, Pulpit: Black Feminist Publics in the Era of Reform. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. pp. 65–66.
  18. ^ Foner, Philip S.; Robert James Branham, eds. (1998). "Chapter 66: The Negroes in the United States of America – Sarah Parker Remond". Lift Every Voice: African American Oratory, 1787–1900. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. pp. 377–80. ISBN 978-0817308483. Reprinted from The Journal of Negro History 27 (April 1942), pp. 216–18.
  19. ^ Bolt, Christine (2013). Victorian Attitudes to Race. Routledge. pp. 103–104. ISBN 9781135031503.
  20. ^ James, Edward T.; Janet Wilson James, eds. (1971). Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary: 1607–1950. Vol. 3. Harvard University Press.
  21. ^ a b Johnson Lewis, Jone, "Sarah Parker Remond, African American Abolitionist", ThoughtCo., September 16, 2017.
  22. ^ "Women Writers and Italy: Two Englishwomen In Rome and Sarah Parker Remond", Woman And Her Sphere, March 30, 2013.
  23. ^ Crawford, Elizabeth (June 20, 2011). "Women: From Abolition to the Vote | Women's suffrage campaign: 1866–1903". British History. BBC.
  24. ^ Salenius, Sirpa (June 16, 2021). "On Archival Research: Recovering and Rewriting History. The Case of Sarah Parker Remond". Transatlantica. Revue d'études américaines. American Studies Journal (1): 1–14. doi:10.4000/transatlantica.16939. ISSN 1765-2766.
  25. ^ Coleman, Willi (January 18, 2007). "Remond, Sarah Parker (1824–1894)". BlackPast.org.
  26. ^ "Notable Graves of the Non-Catholic Cemetery". The Non-Catholic Cemetery in Rome. Retrieved December 7, 2016.
  27. ^ a b "Virtual Tour of the Massachusetts State House: Women's Memorial". Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
  28. ^ a b Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities (1999). "Making the World Better: The Struggle for Equality in 19th Century America" (PDF). Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. Retrieved March 24, 2021.
  29. ^ Busby, Margaret, ed. (2019). New Daughters of Africa. Myriad Editions. pp. 4–9. ISBN 9781912408023.
  30. ^ Rocker-Clinton, Johnna (August 2019). "New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent". San Francisco Book Review. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
  31. ^ Cudjoe, Selwyn (April 8, 2019). "New Daughters of Africa". Trinidad and Tobago News Blog. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
  32. ^ UCL (March 11, 2020). "UCL centre renamed in memory of transatlantic abolitionist". UCL News. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  33. ^ Grasso, Gabriella (May 27, 2020). "Today's must-read is Afro-Italian and talks about two women's stories, between the US and Italy". Elle. Translated by Alessio Colonnelli. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
  34. ^ Riccò, Giulia (December 7, 2020). "Reimagining Italy Through Black Women's Eyes". Public Books. Retrieved March 25, 2021.
  35. ^ Hodgson, Neil (March 9, 2021). "University of Chester unveils foundations for growth in Warrington town centre". The Business Desk. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  36. ^ "Remond House". University of Chester. July 29, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  37. ^ "University Centre Warrington celebrates relocation with blue plaque unveiling". FE News. April 27, 2023.
  38. ^ a b Burn, Chris (June 8, 2021). "Wakefield to recognise anti-slavery pioneer Elizabeth Dawson with latest 'Forgotten Women' blue plaque". Yorkshire Post.
  39. ^ Marshall, Julie (September 16, 2021). "Anti-slavery campaigners Blue Plaque recognition in Wakefield". Wakefield Express. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  40. ^ "Elizabeth Dawson and Sarah Parker Remond". The Forgotten Women of Wakefield. Retrieved March 23, 2022.
  41. ^ "Wakefield Anti-Slavery Association". Open Plaques. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  42. ^ Reynolds, Laura (March 1, 2022). "Plaque Commemorating Slavery Abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond To Be Unveiled". The Londonist. Retrieved March 25, 2022.
  43. ^ "Campaigner Sarah Parker Remond honoured with Blue Plaque 130 years later". Melan. March 24, 2022. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
  44. ^ "UCL alumna Sarah Parker Remond honoured with blue plaque". UCL News. March 28, 2022. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
  45. ^ Bakare, Lanre (April 1, 2023). "Painting a new pantheon: portrait series honours Black radicals". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved October 28, 2023.
  46. ^ Bakare, Lanre. "The radicals: from abolitionists to activists, new portraits of those who resisted slavery". the Guardian. Retrieved October 28, 2023.

Further reading edit

  • Coleman, Willi, "'...Like Hot Lead to Pour on the Americans': Sarah Parker Remond and the International Fight Against Slavery", in Stewart James and Kish Sklar, eds., Sisterhood and Slavery: International Antislavery and Women's Rights. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
  • Coleman, Willi (2007). "'Like Hot Lead to Pour on the Americans...': Sarah Parker Remond – From Salem, Mass. to the British Isles". In Stewart, James Brewer (ed.). Women's Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation. Yale University Press. pp. 173–188. ISBN 9781281735294.
  • Harper, Judith E., ed. (2004). "Remond, Sarah Parker (1826–1894)". Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. ISBN 9780415937238.
  • Holloway, Julia Bolton (June 13, 2019), "Sarah Parker Remond (1834–1894) in her context". Lecture given at Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, Florence.
  • Porter, Dorothy Burnett, The Remonds of Salem Massachusetts: A Nineteenth Century Family Revisited. Boston: American Antiquarian Society, 1985.
  • Reyes, Angelita, "Allusive Autobiographical Performativity: Vicey Skipwith's Home Place and Sarah Remond Parker's Italian Retreat", in John Cullen Gruesser and Hanna Wallinger (eds), Loopholes and Retreats: African-American Writers and the Nineteenth Century, Münster: Lit Verlag, 2009, pp. 141–168. ISBN 9783825818920
  • Salenius, Sirpa (2016). An Abolitionist Abroad: Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9781625342454.
  • Salenius, Sirpa (2017). "Transatlantic interracial sisterhoods: Sarah Remond, Ellen Craft, and Harriet Jacobs in England". Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies. University of Nebraska Press. 38 (1): 166–196. doi:10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0166. JSTOR 10.5250/fronjwomestud.38.1.0166. S2CID 164419591.
  • Yee, Shirley J. Black women abolitionists: A study in activism, 1828-1860 (Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1992). online

External links edit

  • Sarah Remond at the African American Registry
  • "Sarah Parker Remond: A Daughter of Salem, Massachusetts", website dedicated to her.
  • Denise Oliver Velez, "Women's history: The abolitionists", Daily Kos, 16 March 2014.
  • "African-American abolitionist and inspiring leader, Sarah Parker Remond (1815–1894)", Royal Holloway University of London.
  • Lucy Jordan, "A voice for freedom: The life of Sarah Parker Remond", Leading Women, University of London.
  • MacLean, Maggie (November 29, 2006), , archived from the original on July 31, 2018, no sources given at this post.
  • Sarah Parker Remond Centre
  • Sirpa Salenius, "Transcript: In the words of Sarah Parker Remond"

sarah, parker, remond, june, 1826, december, 1894, american, lecturer, activist, abolitionist, campaigner, born, 1826, june, 1826salem, massachusetts, united, statesdieddecember, 1894, 1894, aged, rome, italyalma, materbedford, college, hospital, santa, maria,. Sarah Parker Remond June 6 1826 December 13 1894 was an American lecturer activist and abolitionist campaigner Sarah Parker RemondBorn 1826 06 06 June 6 1826Salem Massachusetts United StatesDiedDecember 13 1894 1894 12 13 aged 68 Rome ItalyAlma materBedford College Hospital of Santa Maria NuovaOccupation s Activist physicianSpouseLazzaro PintorParent s John Remond father Nancy Lenox mother RelativesCharles Lenox Remond brother Caroline Remond Putnam sister Cecilia Remond Putnam sister Marchita Remond sister Born a free woman in the state of Massachusetts she became an international activist for human rights and women s suffrage Remond made her first public speech against the institution of slavery when she was 16 years old and delivered abolitionist speeches throughout the northeastern United States One of her brothers Charles Lenox Remond became known as an orator and they occasionally toured together for their abolitionist lectures Eventually becoming an agent of the American Anti Slavery Society in 1858 Remond chose to travel to Britain to gather support for the growing abolitionist cause in the United States While in London Remond also studied at Bedford College lecturing during term breaks During the American Civil War she appealed for support among the British public for the Union and their blockade of the Confederacy After the conclusion of the war in favor of the Union she appealed for funds to support the millions of the newly emancipated freedmen in the American South From England Remond went to Italy in 1867 to pursue medical training in Florence where she became a physician She practiced medicine for nearly 20 years in Italy and never returned to the United States dying in Rome at the age of 68 Contents 1 Early years 2 Anti slavery activism and lecturing 3 Anti slavery lecturing in Great Britain 4 Education and later years 5 Tribute 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External linksEarly years editBorn in Salem Massachusetts Remond was one of the between eight and 11 children of John Remond and Nancy nee Lenox Remond 1 Nancy was born in Newton daughter of Cornelius Lenox a Revolutionary War veteran who had fought in the Continental Army and Susanna Perry 2 John Remond was a free person of color who immigrated to Massachusetts from the Dutch colony of Curacao as a 10 year old child in 1798 John and Nancy married in October 1807 in the African Baptist Church in Boston In Salem they built a successful catering provisioning and hairdressing business becoming well established businesspeople and activists 1 The Remonds tried to place their children in a private school but they were rejected because of their race When Sarah Remond and her sisters were accepted to a local high school for girls which was not segregated they were expelled as the school committee was planning to found a separate school for African American children Remond later described the incident as engraved in her heart like the scarlet letter of Hester 1 In 1835 the Remond family moved to Newport Rhode Island where they hoped to find a less racist environment in which to educate their children However the schools refused to accept black students Instead some influential African Americans established a private school where Remond was educated 1 In 1841 the Remond family returned to Salem 1 Sarah Remond continued her education on her own attending concerts and lectures and reading widely in books pamphlets and newspapers borrowed from friends or purchased from the anti slavery society of her community which sold many inexpensive titles 3 The Remond family also took in as boarders students who were attending the local girls academy including Charlotte Forten later Grimke 4 Three of Remond s sisters built a business together Cecilia married to James Babcock Maritchie Juan and Caroline married to Joseph Putnam 4 owned the fashionable Ladies Hair Work Salon in Salem as well as the biggest wig factory in the state 5 Their oldest sister Nancy married James Shearman an oyster dealer The Remond brothers were Charles Remond who became an abolitionist and orator and John Remond who married Ruth Rice one of two women elected to the finance committee of the 1859 New England Colored Citizens Convention 4 1 Anti slavery activism and lecturing editSalem in the 1840s was a center of anti slavery activity and the whole family was committed to the rising abolitionist movement in the United States The Remonds home was a haven for black and white abolitionists and they hosted many of the movement s leaders including William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips and more than one fugitive slave fleeing north to freedom John Remond was a life member of the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society 2 Sarah Remond s older brother Charles Lenox Remond was the first black lecturer of the American Anti Slavery Society s and considered a leading black abolitionist Nancy Remond was one of the founders of the Salem Female Anti Slavery Society 1 Nancy not only taught her daughters the household skills of cooking and sewing but also to seek liberty lawfully she wanted them to take part in society 3 With her mother and sisters Sarah Remond was an active member of the state and county female anti slavery societies including the Salem Female Anti Slavery Society the New England Anti Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society She also regularly attended antislavery lectures in Salem and Boston 2 With the support and financial backing of her family Sarah Remond became an anti slavery lecturer delivering her first lecture against slavery at the age of 16 with her brother Charles in Groton Massachusetts in July 1842 6 Remond rose to prominence among abolitionists in 1853 when she refused to sit in a segregated theater section She had bought tickets by post for herself and a group of friends including historian William C Nell to the popular opera Don Pasquale at the Howard Athenaeum in Boston 7 When they arrived at the theatre Remond was shown to segregated seating After refusing to accept it she was forced to leave the theatre and pushed down some stairs 3 Remond sued for damages and won her case She was awarded 500 and an admission by theatre management that she was wronged the court ordered the theater to integrate all seating 7 8 In 1856 the American Anti Slavery Society hired a team of lecturers including Remond Charles already well known in the U S and Britain and Susan B Anthony to tour New York State addressing anti slavery issues Over the next two years she her brother and others also spoke in New York Massachusetts Ohio Michigan and Pennsylvania 2 She and other African Americans were often given poor accommodation due to racial discrimination 3 Although inexperienced Remond rapidly became an effective speaker William Lloyd Garrison praised her calm dignified manner her winning personal appearance and her earnest appeals to the conscience and the heart 9 Sarah Clay wrote that Remond s every word waked up dormant aspirations which would vibrate through the ages 1 Over time she became one of the society s most persuasive and powerful lecturers 10 Abby Kelley Foster a noted abolitionist in Massachusetts encouraged Remond when they toured together in 1857 11 On December 28 1858 Remond wrote in a letter to Foster 12 I feel almost sure I never should have made the attempt but for the words of encouragement I received from you Although my heart was in the work I felt that I was in need of a good English education When I consider that the only reason why I did not obtain what I so much desired was because I was the possessor of an unpopular complexion it adds to my discomfort Anti slavery lecturing in Great Britain edit nbsp Frederick Douglass circa 1879 Remond and Douglass toured together in Britain As a good speaker and fundraiser Remond was invited to take the cause of the American abolitionists to Britain as her brother Charles had done 10 years earlier Accompanied by the Reverend Samuel May Jr she sailed from Boston for Liverpool on December 28 1858 on the steamer Arahia They arrived in Liverpool on January 12 1859 after a discomforting trip in the winter The ship had become covered with ice and snow and rolled and tossed so much that many of the passengers became ill including Remond 3 At Tuckerman Institute on January 21 1859 Remond gave her first antislavery lecture in England Her second lecture Slave Life in America took place just a few days later on January 24 During these speeches she spoke eloquently of the inhumane treatment of slaves in the United States her stories shocking many of her listeners She also described the discrimination endured by free blacks throughout the United States 1 For the next three years Remond lectured to crowds in several other towns and cities throughout the British Isles including Warrington Manchester London and Leeds 13 raising large sums of money for the anti slavery cause Between 1859 and 1861 she gave more than 45 lectures in England Ireland and Scotland 2 Remond also appeared at times with Frederick Douglass 1 In 1860 at the invitation of the Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society she gave a lecture in Edinburgh that was crowded to the door by a most respectable audience number upwards of 2000 whose consciences she awakened to a deepened abhorrence of the sin of Slavery 14 Although before she sailed to the UK Remond expected to confront prejudice similar as what she encountered in the United States writing to Abby Kelly Foster that she feared not the wind nor the waves but I know that no matter how I go the spirit of prejudice will meet me she met with a greater acceptance in Britain I have been received here as a sister by white women for the first time in my life she wrote I have received a sympathy I never was offered before 1 Remond was praised for her speeches in which she spoke out against slavery and racial discrimination stressing the sexual exploitation of black women under slavery 1 Remond called on common themes found in sentimental fiction such as family womanhood and marriage to evoke an emotional response in her audience 15 In her short autobiography written in 1861 she observed that prejudice against colour has always been the one thing above all others which has cast its gigantic shadow over my whole life 16 self published source During her speaking tours of the British Isles Remond and her fellow U S abolitionists drew comparisons between American slavery and the plight of the British working class during the Industrial Revolution leading to abolitionists in Britain to note that their lectures were packed almost entirely by the working class 17 Once the American Civil War 1861 1865 began Remond worked to build support in Britain for the Union blockade of the Confederacy and the Union cause Because British textile factories relied heavily on American cotton from the Southern United States Remond focused on this in her lectures In an 1862 speech she implored her London audience to Let no diplomacy of statesmen no intimidation of slaveholders no scarcity of cotton no fear of slave insurrections prevent the people of Great Britain from maintaining their position as the friend of the oppressed negro 18 After the conclusion of the Civil War Remond changed her focus to lecture on behalf of the millions of freedmen in the United States soliciting funds and clothing for them She was an active member of the London Emancipation Society and the Freedman s Aid Association in London Her lecture The Freeman or the Emancipated Negro of the Southern States of the United States delivered in London was published in The Freedman London in 1867 3 In the mid 1860s Remond published a letter from London in the Daily News protesting that racial prejudice had worsened thanks to the efforts of planters in the West Indies and the American South 19 Education and later years edit nbsp Remond is interred at the Cimitero Acattolico in Rome From October 1859 to June 1861 Remond undertook studies at Bedford College later part of the University of London and now merged with Royal Holloway College She studied classical academic subjects French Latin English literature music history and elocution 20 continuing to give her own lectures during college vacations 21 During this period she also traveled to Rome and Florence in Italy 6 Remond continued to be involved in the abolitionist and feminist causes in Britain She was a member first of the London Emancipation Committee and then helped found and served on the executive committee of the Ladies London Emancipation Society which was organized in 1863 1 Remond is thought to be the only black woman 22 who was among the 1500 signatories to a women only 1866 petition requesting the right of women to vote 23 Returning briefly to the U S Remond joined with the American Equal Rights Association working for equal suffrage for women and African Americans 21 Remond continued her studies at London University College graduating as a nurse 1 In 1866 she left England and after visiting Switzerland in 1867 at the age of 42 she moved permanently to Florence 13 She entered the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital school as a medical student 7 At the time the school was one of the most prestigious medical schools in Europe 1 Remond graduated in August 1868 24 After completing her studies and becoming a doctor she remained in Florence for many years then resided in Rome 11 Remond practiced medicine for more than 20 years never returning to the United States Her sister Caroline and Maritcha joined her from the United States 1 Frederick Douglass met the three women while visiting Rome in 1886 25 In Italy on April 25 1877 Remond married Lazzaro Pintor 1833 1913 an Italian office worker originally from Sardinia 1 By the 1880s Remond Pintor had moved to Rome 1 Remond died on December 13 1894 in Rome She is interred at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome 26 Tribute editIn 1999 the Massachusetts State House honored six outstanding women of the state by installing a series of six tall marble panels with a bronze bust in each the busts are of Remond Dorothea Dix Florence Luscomb Mary Kenney O Sullivan Josephine St Pierre Ruffin and Lucy Stone 27 28 Two quotations from each of these women are etched on their own marble panel The wall behind the panels has wallpaper made of six government documents repeated over and over with each document being related to a cause of one or more of the women 27 28 The 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa edited by Margaret Busby includes two pieces by Sarah Parker Remond Why Slavery is Still Rampant and The Negro Race in America a letter to the editor of The Daily News London in 1866 29 30 Additionally her legacy informs Delia Jarrett Macauley s contribution to the anthology The Bedford Women which recounts Remond s story 31 In 2020 the University College London renamed its Centre for the Study of Racism amp Racialisation the UCL Sarah Parker Remond Centre with Professor Paul Gilroy as its Founding Director 32 The best selling novel La linea del colori Il Grand Tour di Lafanu Brown by Somalian writer Igiaba Scego Florence Giunti 2020 in Italian combines the characters of African American sculptor Edmonia Lewis and Sarah Parker Remond and is dedicated to Rome and to these two figures 33 34 In 2021 the University of Chester detailed plans to relocate the majority of its teaching provision to Warrington town center housed in a property newly renamed the Sarah Parker Remond Building 35 36 In April 2023 the relocation was celebrated with the unveiling of a blue heritage plaque in honor of Remond 37 In September 2021 Remond was honored in Wakefield West Yorkshire where she spoke on her 1859 1860 tour of England and Ireland campaigning on the evils of enslavement having been invited by Elizabeth Dawson of the Wakefield Ladies Anti Slavery Society 38 39 40 After Remond delivered her lecture the mixed gender Wakefield Anti Slavery Association was established on January 12 1860 at the Corn Exchange 38 41 In 2022 the unveiling in London of a Nubian Jak Community Trust commemorative blue plaque in her honour was announced 42 taking place on March 25 43 44 In 2023 The Guardian commissioned a portrait of Remond by Claudette Johnson as part of its Cotton Capital project 45 46 References edit a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Sirpa Salenius 2016 An Abolitionist Abroad Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe Amherst University of Massachusetts Press ISBN 9781613764817 OCLC 1012312578 a b c d e Porter Dorothy Burnett October 1985 The Remonds of Salem Massachusetts A Nineteenth Century Family Revisited PDF Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society Boston 95 2 a b c d e f Hine Darlene Clark Brown Elsa Barkley Terborg Penn Rosalyn 1993 Sarah Parker Remond 1826 1894 Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia Vol II M Z Indianapolis Indiana University Press ISBN 0 926019 61 9 a b c Grimke Charlotte Forten 1988 People in the Journals In Stevenson Brenda E ed The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke New York Oxford University Press pp xli xlix ISBN 0 19 505238 2 Rooks Noliwe M 1996 Hair Raising Beauty Culture and African American Women Rutgers University Press p 24 ISBN 9780813523125 a b Bethel Kari Remond Sarah Parker 1826 1894 Encyclopedia com www encyclopedia com Retrieved February 6 2019 a b c Sarah Parker Remond and the Remonds of Salem Variety Spice Life 20 July 2011 May 4 1853 Sarah Remond Ejected from Boston Theater Sterling Dorothy ed 1984 We are Your Sisters Black Women in the Nineteenth Century W W Norton amp Company p 176 ISBN 9780393316292 Retrieved December 7 2016 Remond at Bedford College in London Sarah Parker Remond A Daughter of Salem Massachusetts July 15 2011 a b Sterling Dorothy 1994 Ahead of Her Time Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery W W Norton amp Company p 276 ISBN 9780393311310 Sterling Dorothy ed 1984 Women with a Special Mission We are Your Sisters Black Women in the Nineteenth Century W W Norton amp Company p 176 ISBN 9780393316292 a b Coleman Willi October 4 2009 Remond Sarah Parker 1826 1894 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 100414 Retrieved March 25 2022 Subscription or UK public library membership required African American Activists in Scotland Sarah Parker Remond Struggles for Liberty African American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic World Retrieved July 23 2023 Salenius Sirpa April 12 2017 Transatlantic Interracial Sisterhoods Sarah Remond Ellen Craft and Harriet Jacobs in England Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies 38 1 166 196 doi 10 5250 fronjwomestud 38 1 0166 ISSN 1536 0334 S2CID 164419591 Miller Sr Connie A 2008 Frederick Douglass American Hero and International Icon of The Nineteenth Century Xlibris p 343 ISBN 9781441576491 Retrieved December 7 2016 Zackodnick Teresa 2011 Press Platform Pulpit Black Feminist Publics in the Era of Reform Knoxville University of Tennessee Press pp 65 66 Foner Philip S Robert James Branham eds 1998 Chapter 66 The Negroes in the United States of America Sarah Parker Remond Lift Every Voice African American Oratory 1787 1900 Tuscaloosa University of Alabama Press pp 377 80 ISBN 978 0817308483 Reprinted from The Journal of Negro History 27 April 1942 pp 216 18 Bolt Christine 2013 Victorian Attitudes to Race Routledge pp 103 104 ISBN 9781135031503 James Edward T Janet Wilson James eds 1971 Notable American Women A Biographical Dictionary 1607 1950 Vol 3 Harvard University Press a b Johnson Lewis Jone Sarah Parker Remond African American Abolitionist ThoughtCo September 16 2017 Women Writers and Italy Two Englishwomen In Rome and Sarah Parker Remond Woman And Her Sphere March 30 2013 Crawford Elizabeth June 20 2011 Women From Abolition to the Vote Women s suffrage campaign 1866 1903 British History BBC Salenius Sirpa June 16 2021 On Archival Research Recovering and Rewriting History The Case of Sarah Parker Remond Transatlantica Revue d etudes americaines American Studies Journal 1 1 14 doi 10 4000 transatlantica 16939 ISSN 1765 2766 Coleman Willi January 18 2007 Remond Sarah Parker 1824 1894 BlackPast org Notable Graves of the Non Catholic Cemetery The Non Catholic Cemetery in Rome Retrieved December 7 2016 a b Virtual Tour of the Massachusetts State House Women s Memorial Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Retrieved March 24 2021 a b Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities 1999 Making the World Better The Struggle for Equality in 19th Century America PDF Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities Retrieved March 24 2021 Busby Margaret ed 2019 New Daughters of Africa Myriad Editions pp 4 9 ISBN 9781912408023 Rocker Clinton Johnna August 2019 New Daughters of Africa An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent San Francisco Book Review Retrieved March 25 2021 Cudjoe Selwyn April 8 2019 New Daughters of Africa Trinidad and Tobago News Blog Retrieved November 2 2021 UCL March 11 2020 UCL centre renamed in memory of transatlantic abolitionist UCL News Retrieved March 12 2020 Grasso Gabriella May 27 2020 Today s must read is Afro Italian and talks about two women s stories between the US and Italy Elle Translated by Alessio Colonnelli Retrieved March 25 2021 Ricco Giulia December 7 2020 Reimagining Italy Through Black Women s Eyes Public Books Retrieved March 25 2021 Hodgson Neil March 9 2021 University of Chester unveils foundations for growth in Warrington town centre The Business Desk Retrieved March 25 2022 Remond House University of Chester July 29 2021 Retrieved March 25 2022 University Centre Warrington celebrates relocation with blue plaque unveiling FE News April 27 2023 a b Burn Chris June 8 2021 Wakefield to recognise anti slavery pioneer Elizabeth Dawson with latest Forgotten Women blue plaque Yorkshire Post Marshall Julie September 16 2021 Anti slavery campaigners Blue Plaque recognition in Wakefield Wakefield Express Retrieved March 25 2022 Elizabeth Dawson and Sarah Parker Remond The Forgotten Women of Wakefield Retrieved March 23 2022 Wakefield Anti Slavery Association Open Plaques Retrieved March 25 2022 Reynolds Laura March 1 2022 Plaque Commemorating Slavery Abolitionist Sarah Parker Remond To Be Unveiled The Londonist Retrieved March 25 2022 Campaigner Sarah Parker Remond honoured with Blue Plaque 130 years later Melan March 24 2022 Retrieved March 30 2022 UCL alumna Sarah Parker Remond honoured with blue plaque UCL News March 28 2022 Retrieved March 30 2022 Bakare Lanre April 1 2023 Painting a new pantheon portrait series honours Black radicals The Guardian ISSN 0261 3077 Retrieved October 28 2023 Bakare Lanre The radicals from abolitionists to activists new portraits of those who resisted slavery the Guardian Retrieved October 28 2023 Further reading editColeman Willi Like Hot Lead to Pour on the Americans Sarah Parker Remond and the International Fight Against Slavery in Stewart James and Kish Sklar eds Sisterhood and Slavery International Antislavery and Women s Rights New Haven Yale University Press 2006 Coleman Willi 2007 Like Hot Lead to Pour on the Americans Sarah Parker Remond From Salem Mass to the British Isles In Stewart James Brewer ed Women s Rights and Transatlantic Antislavery in the Era of Emancipation Yale University Press pp 173 188 ISBN 9781281735294 Harper Judith E ed 2004 Remond Sarah Parker 1826 1894 Women During the Civil War An Encyclopedia Routledge ISBN 9780415937238 Holloway Julia Bolton June 13 2019 Sarah Parker Remond 1834 1894 in her context Lecture given at Santa Maria Nuova Hospital Florence Porter Dorothy Burnett The Remonds of Salem Massachusetts A Nineteenth Century Family Revisited Boston American Antiquarian Society 1985 Reyes Angelita Allusive Autobiographical Performativity Vicey Skipwith s Home Place and Sarah Remond Parker s Italian Retreat in John Cullen Gruesser and Hanna Wallinger eds Loopholes and Retreats African American Writers and the Nineteenth Century Munster Lit Verlag 2009 pp 141 168 ISBN 9783825818920 Salenius Sirpa 2016 An Abolitionist Abroad Sarah Parker Remond in Cosmopolitan Europe Amherst University of Massachusetts Press ISBN 9781625342454 Salenius Sirpa 2017 Transatlantic interracial sisterhoods Sarah Remond Ellen Craft and Harriet Jacobs in England Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies University of Nebraska Press 38 1 166 196 doi 10 5250 fronjwomestud 38 1 0166 JSTOR 10 5250 fronjwomestud 38 1 0166 S2CID 164419591 Yee Shirley J Black women abolitionists A study in activism 1828 1860 Univ of Tennessee Press 1992 onlineExternal links editSarah Remond at the African American Registry Sarah Parker Remond A Daughter of Salem Massachusetts website dedicated to her Denise Oliver Velez Women s history The abolitionists Daily Kos 16 March 2014 African American abolitionist and inspiring leader Sarah Parker Remond 1815 1894 Royal Holloway University of London Lucy Jordan A voice for freedom The life of Sarah Parker Remond Leading Women University of London MacLean Maggie November 29 2006 Sarah Parker Remond archived from the original on July 31 2018 no sources given at this post Sarah Parker Remond Centre Sirpa Salenius Transcript In the words of Sarah Parker Remond Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Sarah Parker Remond amp oldid 1189215684, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.