Charlotte Forten Grimké, American Abolitionist and Author
Charlotte Louise Bridges Forten Grimké (August 17, 1837 - July 23, 1914) was an African-American abolitionist, 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 where she struck up a friendship with Robert Gould Shaw, the Commander of the all-black 54th Massachusetts Regiment. She was present when the 54th stormed Fort Wagner. Shaw was killed in the battle, and Forten volunteered as a nurse to the surviving members of the 54th. 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. In 1878, Forten married Presbyterian minister Francis J. Grimké, pastor of the prominent Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, , a major African-American congregation. He was a mixed-race nephew of white abolitionists Sarah and Angelina Grimké of South Carolina. 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 North in the antebellum years. She died in 1914 at the age of 76. No photographer credited, undated
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