Francis James Grimké was a Presbyterian minister who was prominent in working for equal rights for African Americans. He was active in the Niagara Movement

Niagara Movement

The Niagara Movement was a black civil rights organization founded in 1905 by a group led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter. It was named for the "mighty current" of change the group wanted to effect and Niagara Falls, the Canadian side of which was where the first meeting took...

 and helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...

 (NAACP).

Early life and education

Grimké was the second of three sons: Archibald and John were his brothers, born to Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman of European and African descent. After having become a widower, the senior Grimke began a relationship with Weston. It appeared to be a caring one; he moved with her out of the city to his plantation where they and their family would have more privacy, and she was his partner in the house. He and Nancy gave the boys their first lessons in reading and writing.

Henry Grimké was the brother of Sarah and Angelina Grimke

Grimké sisters

Sarah Grimké and Angelina Grimké , known as the Grimké sisters, were 19th-century American Quakers, educators and writers who were early advocates of abolitionism and women's rights....

, who left the South as they became abolitionists. He had other brothers and sisters who continued to fulfill their roles, as he mostly did, as members of a prominent slaveholding family of Charleston.

Discovery

It was not until years after Henry's death that the Grimké sisters learned about their multiracial nephews. Nancy had died, and they arranged to help the boys leave the South and get educations. Grimké graduated from Lincoln University, PA in 1870, along with his older brother Archibald, who was also a member of the class of 1870. He went on to further studies at Princeton Theological Seminary

Princeton Theological Seminary

Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...

, from which he graduated.

In December 1878, Grimké married abolitionist and diarist Charlotte Forten

Charlotte Forten Grimké

Charlotte Louise Bridges Forten Grimké was an African-American anti-slavery activist, poet, and educator.-Biography:...

. She was 41 and he was about 13 years her junior. In 1880, they had one daughter, Theodora Cornelia, who died as an infant.

Grimké began his ministry at the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Except for a few years' sojourn at a church in Jacksonville, Florida, he continued to lead the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. until 1928. Grimké died in 1937, nearly twenty years after Charlotte.

Grimké's elder brother, Archibald Grimké

Archibald Grimke

Archibald Henry Grimké was an American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th century...

, served as consul to the Dominican Republic

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...

 from 1894-1898. Archibald's daughter, Angelina Weld Grimké

Angelina Weld Grimke

Angelina Weld Grimké was an African-American journalist, teacher, playwright and poet who was part of the Harlem Renaissance and was one of the first African-American women to have a play performed.- Biography :...

, stayed as a child with Grimké and his wife during the period of her father's service to the Dominican Republic. Angelina later became a teacher, and a prominent writer and activist in her own right.

An enduring quote from Francis Grimké was: "Race prejudice can't be talked down, it must be lived down."

External links

• Quotes