Charlotte Forten Grimké

African-American anti-slavery activist, poet, and educator.

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

Charlotte Forten was the first northern African-American schoolteacher to go south to teach former slaves. A sensitive and genteel young woman, she brought intense idealism and fierce abolitionist zeal to her work. As a black woman, she hoped to find kinship with the freedmen, though her own education set her apart from the former slaves. She stayed on St. Helena Island for two years, then succumbed to ill health and had to return north. In 1864, she published “Life on the Sea Islands” in The Atlantic Monthly, which brought the work of the Port Royal Experiment to the attention of Northern readers.

Forten was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Mary Woods and Robert Bridges Forten, members of the prominent black Forten-Purvis families 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. Forten’s 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 grandparents were Philadelphia abolitionists James Forten, Sr. and his wife Charlotte Vandine Forten, who were also active in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.

“One cannot believe that the haughty Anglo Saxon race, after centuries of such an experience as these people have had, would be very much superior to them.”

In 1854, Forten attended the Higginson Grammar School in Salem, Massachusetts. She was the only non-white student in a class of 200. After graduating, she taught at Epes Grammar School in Salem and was the first African American to teach white students in Massachusetts.  Known for emphasis in critical thinking, the school focused classes on history, geography, drawing and cartography. After Higginson, Forten studied literature and teaching at the Salem Normal School. Forten cited William Shakespeare, John Milton, Margaret Fuller and William Wordsworth as some of her favorite authors. As a member of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, she began to compose her Journals (1854–64 and 1885–92), which would become renowned chronicles of the abolitionist movement.

Forten became a member of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society, where she was involved in coalition building and money-raising. She proved to be influential as an activist and leader on civil rights. She occasionally spoke to public groups on abolitionist issues. In addition, she arranged for lectures by 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.

Diary entry: “Sunday, January 18, 1856: But oh, how inexpressibly bitter and agonizing it is to feel oneself an outcast from the rest of mankind, as we are in this country! To me it is dreadful, dreadful. Oh, that I could de much towards bettering our condition. I will do all, all the very little that lies in my power, while life and strength last!”

In 1856, finances forced Forten to take 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 writing poetry, much of which was activist in theme. Her work was published in The Liberator and Anglo African magazines.

From Life in the Sea Island: “The first day at school was rather trying. Most of my children were very small, and consequently restless. Some were too young to learn the alphabet. These little ones were brought to school because the older children — in whose care their parents leave them while at work — could not come without them. We were therefore willing to have them come, although they seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, and tried one’s patience sadly. But after some days of positive, though not severe treatment, order was brought out of chaos, and I found but little difficulty in managing and quieting the tiniest and most restless spirits. I never before saw children so eager to learn, although I had had several years’ experience in New England schools. Coming to school is a constant delight and recreation to them. They come here as other children go to play. The older ones, during the summer, work in the fields from early morning until eleven or twelve o’clock, and then come into school, after their hard toil in the hot sun, as bright and as anxious to learn as ever.”

Forten was the first black teacher to join the American Civil War‘s Sea Islands mission. During her time in South Carolina, she worked with many former slaves who were enthusiastic about her teaching. She chronicled this time in her essays, entitled “Life on the Sea Islands”, which were published in Atlantic Monthly in the May and June issues of 1864.

Children and a teacher at the Penn School on St. Helena Island, SC.

From Life on the Sea Islands: The first day at school was rather trying. Most of my children were very small, and consequently restless. Some were too young to learn the alphabet. These little ones were brought to school because the older children — in whose care their parents leave them while at work — could not come without them. We were therefore willing to have them come, although they seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, and tried one’s patience sadly. But after some days of positive, though not severe treatment, order was brought out of chaos, and I found but little difficulty in managing and quieting the tiniest and most restless spirits. I never before saw children so eager to learn, although I had had several years’ experience in New England schools. Coming to school is a constant delight and recreation to them. They come here as other children go to play. The older ones, during the summer, work in the fields from early morning until eleven or twelve o’clock, and then come into school, after their hard toil in the hot sun, as bright and as anxious to learn as ever.

Charlotte Forten’s Mission was originally telecast February 25, American Playhouse.

Forten struck up a deep friendship with Robert Gould Shaw, the Commander of the all black 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Sea Islands Campaign and was present when the 54th stormed Fort Wagner on the night of July 18, 1863. Shaw was killed in the battle and Forten volunteered as a nurse to the surviving members of the 54th. In the late 1860s, Forten worked for the U.S. Treasury Departmentin Washington, DC, recruiting teachers. In 1873 she became a clerk at the Treasury Department. In 1985, PBS broadcast a movie about Charlotte Forten. Charlotte intends to educate the newly freed slaves in this Union-held community. Her mission is complicated by a self-serving abolitionist and the fact that the slaves mistrust her because of her lighter complexion and “fancy airs.”

In December 1878, when Forten was 41, she married Presbyterian minister and former slave  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. While her father served in the Dominican Republic, Angelina Grimké lived with Charlotte and Francis Grimke. Angelina Weld Grimké later became an author in her own right.

In 1880, Charlotte and Francis Grimké’s daughter Theodora Cornelia was born. She died as an infant.

Charlotte Forten Grimké 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?” It asserted that blacks were not discriminated against in New England society. Forten Grimké stated that black Americans achieved success over extraordinary social odds, and they simply wanted fair and respectful treatment.

Charlotte Forten Grimké was a regular journal writer until she returned north after teaching in South Carolina. After her return, her entries were less frequent. While she did write about her daughter’s death and her busy life with her husband, her writing was less frequent than the daily entries she made when younger. Her diary is one of the few extant documents detailing the life of a free black female in the antebellum North.