Charlotte Forten Grimké

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Charlotte L. Bridges Forten Grimké (17 August 1837 – July 23, 1914) was an African American anti-slavery activist, poet, and educator.

Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Mary Woods and Robert Bridges Forten, members of the prominent Black Forten-Purvis family of Philadelphia. Robert Forten and his brother-in-law, Robert Purvis, were abolitionists and members of the Philadelphia Vigilant Committee, an anti-slavery network that rendered assistance to escaped slaves. Her paternal aunt, Margaretta Forten, worked in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society along with her sisters Harriet Forten Purvis and Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis. Forten's grandfather, Philadelphia abolitionist James Forten, Sr. and his wife Charlotte Vandine Forten were also active members in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1854, Forten attended the Higginson Grammar School in Salem, Massachusetts. She was the only non-white student out of a class of 200. Known for emphasis in critical thinking, the school focused on studying history, geography, drawing and cartography. After Higginson, she studied literature and teaching at the Salem Normal School. Forten cited William Shakespeare, John Milton, Margaret Fuller and William Wordsworth as some of her favorites.

Forten became a member of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, where she was involved in networking and money-raising, and proved to be influential as an activist and leader on civil rights. She occasionally spoke in public on abolitionist issues, and arranged for the lectures of prominent speakers and writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Senator Charles Sumner. Forten was acquainted with many other anti-slavery proponents including William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, and the orators and activists Wendell Phillips, Maria Weston Chapman and William Wells Brown.

In 1856, finances forced Forten into taking a teaching position at Epes Grammar School in Salem. She was well received as a teacher, but returned to Philadelphia after two years due to tuberculosis. At this point, Forten began producing poetry, much of which was activist in theme, and was published in The Liberator and Anglo African magazines.

She became the first black teacher involved in the American Civil War's Sea Islands mission. During her time in South Carolina, she worked with the many former slaves who thoroughly enjoyed her work. She chronicled this time in her essays titled, "Life on the Sea Islands", which were published in the Atlantic Monthly in the May and June issues of 1864. In the late 1860s Forten worked for the U.S. Treasury Department recruiting teachers; in 1873 she became a clerk at the Treasury Department.

In December 1878, when she was 41, Forten married Presbyterian minister Francis J. Grimké, the nephew of abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké. Francis J. Grimké was also the brother of Archibald Grimké, who served as U.S. consul in the Dominican Republic from 1894-1898 and the uncle of Archibald's daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke, who would become an author in her own right. Angelina stayed with Charlotte and her husband during the period of her father's service in the Dominican Republic.

In 1880, Charlotte and Francis Grimké had one daughter, Theodora Cornelia, who died as an infant.

Charlotte Forten Grimké then helped her husband in his ministry at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., organized a women's missionary group, and continued her "racial uplift" efforts.

Charlotte Forten Grimké's last literary effort was in response to an Evangelist editorial, "Relations of Blacks and Whites: Is There a Color Line in New England?" which asserted that Blacks were not discriminated against in New England society. She stated that Black Americans achieved success over extraordinary social odds, and simply wanted fair and respectful treatment.

Charlotte Forten Grimké also maintained journals faithfully until she returned north after teaching in South Carolina. After her return, her entries are less frequent. There are entries from this period that touch upon her daughter's death and her life with her husband, but these are fewer in number compared to the daily entries she made when she was younger. Her diary is one of the few extant documents that informs on life for a free Black female in the antebellum North.

[edit] External links

• Lakewood Public Library profile
• Biography
• Studio portrait of Charlotte L. Forten Grimke housed at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
• Profile at PBS Online: Only A Teacher: Schoolhouse Pioneers website

[edit] References

• Randall, Willard Sterne and Nahra, Nancy. "Forgotten Americans: Footnote Figures who Changed American History." Perseus Books Group, United States, 1998. ISBN 0-7382-0150-2.

• Shockley, Ann Allen, Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide, New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989. ISBN 0452009812