Juneteenth: 7 Lesser-known black abolitionists
4.Charlotte Forten Grimké
Born to free blacks in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1837, Charlotte Forten Grimké became active in the abolitionist movement during the 1850s after moving to Massachusetts.
She worked alongside prominent white antislavery activists William Lloyd Garrison and Lydia Maria Child, and wrote poems for the abolitionist publications The Liberator and The Evangelist.
In 1861, when Union forces occupied the Sea Islands near Beaufort, South Carolina, Grimké was among the many northern teachers who came down to help educate recently freed slaves.
According to the National Park Service, Grimké “joined the staff of the Penn School, on St. Helena Island,” thus becoming “the first Black teacher in Beaufort County.”
“During Forten's tenure at Penn School, classes met at Brick Baptist Church, and in the 20th century, church members placed a small marker to Forten near the church entrance,” NPS explained.
“During her time at Penn School, Forten kept detailed journals, as well as published an account in the Atlantic Monthly, ‘Life on the Sea Islands,’ in May and June of 1864. She taught at a number of schools on St Helena Island until the end of the Civil War.”
