| Archibald Grimké | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 August 1849 Charleston, South Carolina, USA |
| Died | 25 February 1930 (aged 80) Washington, D.C., USA |
| Occupation | Attorney, diplomat, journalist |
| Spouse | Sarah Stanley |
| Children | Angelina Weld Grimke |
| Relatives | siblings: Francis, Sarah, and Angelina |
Archibald Henry Grimké (17 August 1849 – 25 February 1930) was an American lawyer, intellectual, journalist, diplomat and community leader in the 19th and early 20th century. He was a graduate of Lincoln University and Harvard Law School, American Consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894–1898, and a co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.
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Grimké was born near Charleston, South Carolina in 1849. He was the eldest of three sons of Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman of European and African descent. She was described in one account as the most beautiful black woman in Charleston. Their father was her (and their) master Henry W. Grimké, of a prominent, large slaveholding family in Charleston. His father and relatives were active in political and social circles. After becoming a widower, Henry Grimké moved with Nancy Weston to his plantation outside Charleston in order to live with her without social oversight. They appeared to have a caring relationship, Grimke freed Nancy or his children: Archibald, Francis and John (born a couple of months after his father's death), before his death, in his will. When the boys were young, he taught them and Nancy to read and write. He entrusted them in his will to his son Montague to be treated as "family".
Montague overturned his father's will and separated the boys from their mother, first taking Archibald as a boy to serve him. Later he hired out Archibald and Francis, both of whom rebelled. He never provided well for them or their mother.
By the time of Henry's relationship with Weston and births of their children, two of his sisters had been gone from Charleston for years, as they had become abolitionists. Sarah and Angelina, were collectively known as the Grimké sisters, active as writers and speakers in northern abolitionist circles. They lived and worked in New Jersey and Massachusetts for years.
When the Grimke sisters discovered their brothers' children, the sisters provided for their nephews' education and tried to guide them, as well as introduce them to their abolitionist circles. Both Archibald and Francis attended Lincoln University after preparatory study, where their teachers told the sisters of the boys' quick learning and brilliance. The professors found them extraordinary students. They each graduated in 1870.
Archibald Grimké went on to study law at Harvard University. He lived and worked in the Boston area most of his career. Archibald was involved in the early NAACP, but had conflicts with men like Booker T Washington. Grimke believed in Democratic Capitalism as a way that former slaves could achieve independence and true freedom.
Francis J. Grimké did graduate work at Princeton Theological Seminary and became an ordained Presbyterian minister. He married abolitionist and diarist Charlotte Forten, of the prominent Philadelphia black abolitionist family. He headed the 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, for more than 40 years. Francis died in 1939.
John did not stay in school. He went to Florida and cut off from the Grimké families. He died in 1918.
While practicing law in Boston, Massachusetts, Archibald Grimké married Sarah Stanley, a white woman, with whom he had one daughter Angelina Weld Grimké. Although their marriage began with great devotion, they separated while their daughter was young. Stanley returned to her home in the Midwest and left Angelina with her father.
Angelina Grimké lived with her uncle Francis and aunt Charlotte in Washington, DC for years while her father was consul in the Dominican Republic. She became a teacher and writer in Washington, DC. In addition to lesbian poetry, Angelina Grimké wrote Rachel, an early play to protest lynching and one of the first plays by an African American considered part of the Harlem Renaissance.
The elder Grimké fell ill in 1928, by which time he was living in Washington, DC with his daughter and brother Francis, then a widower. They cared for him until his death in 1930.