Nevertheless They Persisted, c. 1837

Here is your inspiration for the week: (From And the Spirit Moved Them, Helen LaKelly Hunt pp97ff) (a note from Wikipedia:The first significant exercise and defense of the right to petition within the U.S. was to advocate the end of slavery by petitioning Congress in the mid-1830s, including 130,000 such requests in 1837 and 1838.) In the months following the [first-ever Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in Philadelphia, 1837], petitioners adopted the zeal of tent revivalists in spreading the message to every person possible. The women petitioned, they went door-to-door to solicit signatures from neighbors. They contact old schoolmates and drank tea with new friends, knowing that these relationships would foster change. It was, in every way, an educational effort… Ohio Presbyterian Maria Sturges eloquently wrote, “Let every petition… be baptized with prayer, and commended with weeping and supplication to Him in whose hands are the hearts of all men, that He would turn the channel of their sympathies from the oppressor to the oppressed.” …As the Grimké sisters noted, “The right of petition is the only political right that women have.” ... Petitioning gave women voice. [And they faced abuse and ignorance.] The women persevered, however, and before long Congress was flooded with petitions. There were so many that they were piled on the tables, under tables, and in storage bins. Some were allegedly used as fuel for fire….Senator Robert James Walker of Tennessee said that he was “pained to see the names of so many American females” on petitions, as reported in the Congressional record: … Mr. W. said, he believes if the ladies… would let us alone, there would be but few abolition petitions. In 1839 petitions to Congress were stacked to the ceiling in a room twenty feet by thirty feet by fourteen feet. The petitions kept coming, even after Congress refused to accept them… (In 1836, the House of Representatives adopted a gag rule that would table all such anti-slavery petitions. John Quincy Adams and other Representatives eventually achieved the repeal of this rule in 1844 on the basis that it was contrary to the [first amendment] right to petition the government.) Are you inspired to take action but need encouragement and support to do it regularly?  Start an "Inspiring for Action" group  with a few friends or like-minded people.    Consult the "How To" page for more info.