Шарлотта Гримке: Аболиционистка, поэт и педагог

American anti slavery activist, poet and educator

Charlotte Louise Bridges Grimké ( Forten; August 17, 1837 – July 23, 1914) was an African American anti slavery activist, poet, and educator. She grew up in a prominent abolitionist family in Philadelphia. She taught school for years, including during the Civil War, to freedmen in South Carolina. Later in life she married Francis James Grimké, a Presbyterian minister who led a major church in Washington, DC, for decades. He was a nephew of the abolitionist Grimké sisters and was active in civil rights. Her diaries written before the end of the Civil War have been published in numerous editions in the 20th century and are significant as a rare record of the life of a free black woman in the antebellum North.

Forten, known as "Lottie," was born on August 17, 1837, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Mary Virginia Wood (1815 – 1840) and Robert Bridges Forten (1813 – 1864).

Her father, Robert Forten, and his brother in law, Robert Purvis, were abolitionists and members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, ered assistance to people who escaped slavery. Her paternal grandfather, the wealthy sailmaker James Forten Sr., was an early abolitionist in Philadelphia. Her paternal aunts – Margaretta Forten, Sarah Louisa Forten Purvis, and Harriet Forten Purvis – and her paternal grandmother, Charlotte Vandine Forten, were all founding members of the Philadelphia Female Anti Slavery Society.

While the Fortens were free northern blacks, Charlotte's mother, Mary Virginia Wood, had been born into slavery in the south. She was the daughter of wealthy planter James Cathcart Johnston of Hayes Plantation, Edenton, North Carolina, and the granddaughter of Governor Samuel Johnston of North Carolina. Charlotte's maternal grandmother, Edith "Edy" Wood (1795 – 1846) was the slave of Captain James Wood, owner of the Eagle Inn and Tavern in Hertford, Perquimans County, North Carolina. In 1854, Forten joined the household of Amy Matilda Cassey and her second husband, Charles Lenox Remond, in Salem, Massachusetts, where she attended the Higginson Grammar School, a private academy for young women. She was the only non white student in a class of 200. Forten cited William Shakespeare, John Milton, Margaret Fuller and William Wordsworth as some of her favorite authors. Her first teaching position was at Eppes Grammar School in Salem, becoming the first African American hired to teach white students in a Salem public school.

Forten became a member of the Salem Female Anti Slavery Society, where she was involved in coalition building and fund raising. She proved to be influential as an activist and leader on civil rights. Forten 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. In 1892, Forten, Helen Appo Cook, Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Jane Patterson, Mary Church Terrell, and Evelyn Shaw formed the Colored Women's League in Washington, D. C. The goals of the service oriented club were to promote unity, social progress, and the best interests of the African American community. In 1896, Forten assisted in starting the National Association of Colored Women. Forten stayed active in activist circles until her death. Her poetry was published in The Liberator and Anglo African magazines. During the American Civil War, Forten was the first black teacher to join the mission to the South Carolina Sea Islands known as the Port Royal Experiment. The Union allowed Northerners to set up schools to begin teaching freedmen who remained on the islands, which had been devoted to large plantations for cotton and rice. Forten was the first African American to teach at the Penn School (now the Penn Center) on St. Helena's Island, South Carolina. The school was initially founded to teach enslaved African American children and eventually African American children freed during the U. S. Civil War. The Union forces divided the land, giving freedmen families plots to work independently. Forten worked with many freedmen and their children on St. Helena Island. During this time, she resided at Seaside Plantation. 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. Forten struck up a deep friendship with Robert Gould Shaw, the Commander of the all black 54th Massachusetts Regiment during the Sea Islands Campaign. She 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. Following the war in the late 1860s, she worked for the U. S. Treasury Department in Washington, DC, recruiting teachers. In 1872, Forten taught at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. One year later, she became a clerk in the Treasury Department. The Charlotte Forten Grimke House in Washington, D. C., is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Charlotte Forten Grimké's last literary effort was in response to The 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. She responded that black Americans achieved success over extraordinary social odds, and they simply wanted fair and respectful treatment. She was a regular journal writer until she returned north after teaching in South Carolina. After her return, her entries were less frequent, although she wrote about her daughter's death and her busy life with her husband. Her journals are a rare example of documents detailing the life of a free black female in the antebellum North.