born Nov. 23, 1803, Hampton, Conn., U.S.
died Feb. 3, 1895, Hyde Park, Mass.
U.S. reformer.
He left divinity studies to become an agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society (1834). His pamphlets The Bible Against Slavery (1837) and Slavery as It Is (1839) helped convert figures such as James Birney , Henry Ward Beecher , and Harriet Beecher Stowe to the antislavery cause. He married his coworker Angelina Grimké (1838), and they directed schools and taught in New Jersey and Massachusetts. In 184143 Weld organized an antislavery reference bureau in Washington, D.C., to assist congressmen seeking to repeal the gag rule restricting the consideration of antislavery petitions in Congress.