Archibald Henry Grimke (b. August 17, 1849, Charleston, South Carolina - d. February 25, 1930, Washington, D. C.) was an American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A graduate of freedmen's schools, Lincoln University (Pennsylvania), and Harvard Law School, Grimke later served as American Consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894 to 1898. Working principally in Boston and Washington, D. C., Grimke was an activist for rights for African Americans. He was a national vice-president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (the NAACP), as well as president of its Washington, D. C. branch.
Grimké was born into slavery near Charleston, South Carolina, in 1849. He was the eldest of three sons of Nancy Weston, who was also born into slavery as the daughter of an enslaved African or African American female and her white owner, and her owner Henry W. Grimké, a widower. Henry recognized his sons, but he did not manumit (free) them, nor did he make the rest of his family aware of their existence. Archibald's brothers were Francis and John. Archibald's father, Henry was a member of a prominent, large slaveholding family in Charleston. His father and his white relatives on his father's side were planters and active in political and social circles.
Henry Grimke, Archibald's father, actually had two families. After becoming a widower, Henry 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. She was his official domestic partner in the house and with Nancy, he fathered three sons. Henry taught Nancy how to read, a skill that she would pass on to their sons.
In 1852, as he was dying, Henry tried to protect his second family by willing Nancy, who was pregnant with their third child, and their two sons Archibald and Francis to his legal (white) son and heir Montague Grimké, whose mother was Henry's deceased wife. He directed that they "be treated as members of the family," but Montague never provided well for them.
Henry's sister Eliza, executor of his will, brought the family to Charleston and allowed them to live as if they were free, but she did not aid them financially. Nancy Weston took in laundry and did other work. When the boys were old enough, they attended a public school with free blacks. In 1860 Montague "claimed them as slaves," bringing the boys into his home as servants. Later he hired out both Archibald and Francis.
During the American Civil War, Francis ran off and became a valet for a Confederate Army Officer stationed at Castle Pinckney, a jail for Union soldiers. Francis was found and jailed for a time before being returned to Montague Grimké, who sold him to another Confederate officer. Archibald ran away and hid for two years with relatives until after the end of the Civil War.
After the Civil War ended, the three Grimké boys attended freedmen's schools, where their talents were recognized by the teachers. They gained support to send Archibald and Francis to the North. They studied at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a college established for the education of blacks.
Francis and his brother went through many hardships afterward, as their father had not provided for them financially. After the Civil War, which disrupted family fortunes further, Archibald, Francis and John were enrolled at Morris Street school, part of the Charleston public schools, a segregated system set up for the first time during the Reconstruction Era by a Republican-dominated, biracial legislature. At the Morris Street School, the talents of three brothers were recognized by the teachers. The two older Grimke brothers gained support to send Archibald and Francis to the North.
John, the youngest son, did not take so well with education. .It appears that he also went North for college but he dropped out. He chose to return to South Carolina to care for their mother, Nancy. Later, there appears to have been a rift between John, the one left behind, and his older brothers. For whatever reasons, John cut himself off from the rest of the family. Later, it was reported that he moved to Florida. He died in 1918, the youngest brother dying first.
After the Morris Street School, the brothers, Archibald and Francis, were then sponsored by Mrs. Pillsbury, sister-in-law of Parker Pillsbury, for higher education at Lincoln University. It was a historically black college founded in Pennsylvania for the education of blacks. Archibald and Francis received tuition from a church committee, but had no money for books and clothing.
Nevertheless, despite the hardships, the two brothers manage to excel at Lincoln University and financial assistance would soon come from an unlikely source.
Archibald was elected as president of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association. Believing that the Republicans were not doing enough, he left the party in 1886. In 1889, he joined the staff of the Boston Herald as a special writer. Shortly after 1890, Grimke removed himself from politics and focused on scholarship. He wrote major biographies of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner.
Archibald Grimke's greatest legacy was undoubtedly his stewardship of the District of Columbia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The District of Columbia branch was the organization's largest and came to represent the NAACP on all issues involving federal legislation and policy. As branch president, Grimke led the efforts of the NAACP into the 1920s, lobbying Congress and federal agencies to inhibit the segregationist policies of Woodrow Wilson's administration, while fighting against discrimination in the Washington community itself. In 1919, in recognition of these efforts and of his lifetime of service defending the rights of African Americans, Archibald Henry Grimke received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP's highest honor.
John, the youngest son, did not take so well with education. .It appears that he also went North for college but he dropped out. He chose to return to South Carolina to care for their mother, Nancy. Later, there appears to have been a rift between John, the one left behind, and his older brothers. For whatever reasons, John cut himself off from the rest of the family. Later, it was reported that he moved to Florida. He died in 1918, the youngest brother dying first.
After the Morris Street School, the brothers, Archibald and Francis, were then sponsored by Mrs. Pillsbury, sister-in-law of Parker Pillsbury, for higher education at Lincoln University. It was a historically black college founded in Pennsylvania for the education of blacks. Archibald and Francis received tuition from a church committee, but had no money for books and clothing.
Nevertheless, despite the hardships, the two brothers manage to excel at Lincoln University and financial assistance would soon come from an unlikely source.
Unbeknownst to the brothers, by the time their father Henry Grimke began his relationship with their mother Nancy Weston, Henry's two youngest sisters, Sarah and Angelina, had been gone from Charleston for years. Unwilling to live in a slave society, they left the South and their family and became noted abolitionists and feminists, drawing on their first-hand knowledge of slavery's horrors. Together known as the Grimke sisters, they were active as writers and speakers in Northern abolitionist circles, having joined the Quakers and the American Anti-Slavery Society. After Angelina married Theodore Weld, the three lived and worked for years in New Jersey. They operated a school together. In 1864, they moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, a new community outside Boston.
In February 1868 Angelina Grimké Weld read an article in The Anti-Slavery Standard in which Edwin Bower, a professor at Lincoln University near Philadelphia, compared Lincoln's all-black student body favorably with any class I have ever had, with special praise for a student after a speech of his was reported. Because of the unusual name, she wrote to learn whether he was related to her family. After learning that he was their nephew and about his brothers, Angelina and Sarah officially acknowledged the three mixed-race boys as family. The sisters supported the three boys while they were in college and opened their home to them.
Angelina and Sarah tried to provide Archibald and Francis with better opportunities. They paid for their nephews' education. Both Archibald and Francis graduated from Lincoln University in 1870. Archibald and Francis then attended Harvard University and Howard University, respectively, for law. Francis shifted to Princeton Theological Seminary and became a minister. The Grimké sisters also introduced the young men to their abolitionist circles.
Archibald graduated from Harvard Law School in 1874. After getting established with his law practice in Boston, Massachusettws, Archibald Grimké met and married Sarah Stanley, a white woman from the Midwest. Archibald and Sarah had a daughter, Angelina Weld Grimke (named for her great aunt Angelina Grimke Weld), who was born in 1880. Archibald and Sarah separated while their daughter was young, and Stanley returned with Angelina to the Midwest when the girl was three. When Angelina was seven, Stanley started working. She brought Angelina back to her father in Boston. The couple never reconciled, and Stanley never saw her daughter again. Sarah Stanley committed suicide by poison in 1898.
In 1894, Grimké was appointed as consul to the Dominican Republic. While he was in Central America, his daughter Angelina lived for years with his brother Francis and his wife Charlotte in Washington, DC, where Francis was minister of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.
After graduating from school, Angelina became a teacher and writer. Her essays and poetry were published by The Crisis, the major publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1916, Angelina wrote the play, Rachel, which addressed lynching, in response to a call by the NAACP for works to protest the controversial film, Birth of a Nation. Angelina's play is one of the first plays by an African American considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition, Angelina wrote poetry, some of which is now considered the first literary works by an African American lesbian.
Archibald Grimké lived and worked in the Boston area most of his career. Beginning in the 1880s, he began to get active in politics and began speaking out about the rise of white supremacy following the end of Reconstruction in the South. In 1884, Archibald was appointed editor of the Hub, a Republican newspaper that tried to attract black readers. Grimké supported equal rights for blacks, both in the paper and in public lectures, which were popular the nineteenth century. He became increasingly active in politics and was chosen for the Republican Party's state convention in 1884. That year he was also appointed to the board of a state hospital for the insane. Grimké became involved in the women's rights movement, which his aunts had supported, and addressed it in the Hub.
Archibald was elected as president of the Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association. Believing that the Republicans were not doing enough, he left the party in 1886. In 1889, he joined the staff of the Boston Herald as a special writer. Shortly after 1890, Grimke removed himself from politics and focused on scholarship. He wrote major biographies of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner.
In the interim, in the South, the situation for blacks was deteriorating, prompting Archibald Grimké to resume the struggle against racism, allying at times with other major leaders of the day. He became involved in Frederick Douglass' National Council of Colored People, a predecessor of the NAACP. The National Council of Colored People grappled with issues of education for blacks, especially in the South. Grimké disagreed with Booker T. Washington about emphasizing industrial and agricultural education for freedmen (the South still had a primarily agricultural economy). He believed there needed to be opportunities for scholarly higher education such as he had.
In 1894, Grimké was appointed as consul to the Dominican Republic. He would hold this position until 1898. While Archibald was in the Caribbean, his daughter Angelina lived with his brother Francis and his wife Charlotte in Washington, D. C., where Francis was minister of the 15th Street Presbyterian Church.
After graduating from school, Angelina became a teacher and writer. Her essays and poetry were published by The Crisis, the major publication of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In 1916, Angelina wrote the play, Rachel, which addressed lynching, in response to a call by the NAACP for works to protest the controversial film, Birth of a Nation. Angelina's play is one of the first plays by an African American considered to be part of the Harlem Renaissance. In addition, Angelina wrote poetry, some of which is now considered the first literary works by an African American lesbian.
In 1901, with several other men, Archibald Grimke started The Guardian, a newspaper in which they could express their views. The trustees of The Guardian selected William Monroe Trotter as editor. Together Grimké and Trotter also organized the Boston Literary and Historical Association, which at the time was a gathering of men opposed to Washington's views. For a time, he was allied with W. E. B. Du Bois, but Grimké continued to make his own way between the two groups.
Despite earlier conflict with Washington and his followers, in 1905, Grimké started writing for The Age, published in New York and the leading black paper. The Age was allied with Washington. He wrote about national issues from his own point of view, for instance, urging more activism and criticizing President Theodore Roosevelt for failing to adequately support black troops in Brownsville, Texas, where they were accused of starting a riot.
Continuing his interest in intellectual work, Archibald Grimke served as president of the American Negro Academy, from 1903 to 1919, which supported African American scholars and promoted higher education for blacks. He published several papers with them, dealing with issues of the day, such as his analysis in "Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States" (1908). He believed that capitalism as practiced in the United States could help freedmen who left agriculture to achieve independence and true freedom.
In 1907, Grimke became involved with the Niagara Movement, started by Du Bois, and later with the NAACP. Grimke and Du Bois continued to struggle to find the best way to deal with racism and advance equal rights, at a time when the lynching of black men in the South continued.
Grimké became increasingly active as a leader in the NAACP, which was founded in 1909. First, he was active in Boston, for instance, writing letters in protest of proposed legislation in Washington, D. C. to prohibit interracial marriages. (The legislation was not passed.) In 1913, he was recruited by national leaders to become the president of the Washington, D. C. branch and moved to the capital with his daughter Angelina. The move reunited Archibald and Angelina with Archibald's brother Francis and his wife Charlotte who still lived in Washington D. C.
Grimké led the public protest in Washington, D.C., against the segregation of federal offices under President Woodrow Wilson, who acceded to wishes of other Southerners on his cabinet. Grimké testified before Congress against it in 1914 but did not succeed in gaining changes. About this time, he also became a national vice-president of the NAACP. The organization supported the United States in World War I, but Grimké highlighted the racial discrimination against blacks in the military and worked to change it.
Archibald fell ill in 1928. At the time, he and Angelina were living with his brother Francis, who by then was a widower. Archibald's daughter and brother cared for him until his death in 1930.
Archibald Grimke's greatest legacy was undoubtedly his stewardship of the District of Columbia branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The District of Columbia branch was the organization's largest and came to represent the NAACP on all issues involving federal legislation and policy. As branch president, Grimke led the efforts of the NAACP into the 1920s, lobbying Congress and federal agencies to inhibit the segregationist policies of Woodrow Wilson's administration, while fighting against discrimination in the Washington community itself. In 1919, in recognition of these efforts and of his lifetime of service defending the rights of African Americans, Archibald Henry Grimke received the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP's highest honor.
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