Archibald Henry Grimke (1849 to 1930)
The Grimke Family hails from Charleston, South Carolina. Of French Huguenot origins, the Grimke name is comparable to the Adams name in Boston or the DuPont name in Delaware. Several leaders in the local Charleston Bar have been of the House of Grimke.
There lived a white, prominent lawyer in Charleston. The lawyer’s name was Henry Grimke and he owned slaves. When his legal wife died around 1843, Henry began to see Nancy Weston. Nancy was a mulatto woman of white, black and Indian descent. Three strands of the American experience flowed through Nancy’s veins. There is no evidence that the relationship between the widowed Henry and Nancy was grounded in forcible rape devoid of emotion and feeling. Instead, the evidence shows a long standing intimacy developed between the two. Henry provided a special cottage for Nancy and their three children together — Archibald Henry Grimke, Francis Grimke, John Grimke.
It was Henry’s expectation that “Nancy and her children be treated as part of the family.” Throughout the 1850s, Henry and Nancy lived in this common law arrangement. The sons grew into boyhood. Henry felt there was always time to ensure his wishes were respected.
Fate intervened in 1860. Before the Civil War began, Henry died. Henry’s passing was unexpected and a great calamity for Nancy and their three sons. The literal terms of Henry’s will sold all of his property and possessions, including slaves, except for Nancy and their three sons. Nancy and the three sons were left to E. Montague Grimke, Henry’s legitimate white son.
An aware and empathetic son would have done right by his three half-brothers. Not Montague. He was indifferent to the fate of his brothers. In fact, he incurred great suffering upon his blood kin. It became too much for the boys to bear. Archibald ran away from his half-brother’s house and lived as a fugitive on the run in Charleston. He spent the last year of the Civil War in a surreal twilight of constant, non-stop hiding. Francis ran away but he was captured and returned to Montague. Montague promptly sold Francis to a Confederate Officer. For the duration of the War, Francis served as an officer’s valet in the Confederate Army.
Archibald and Francis rejoiced when the War ended. They were now free of bondage at the hands of their blood brother!
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Bothers Archibald and Francis sought as much education as they could after the Civil War. Archibald immediately attended a Freedmen’s Bureau school named the Morris Street School. In 1867, Archibald and Francis enrolled at the black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
One day in 1868, Angelina Grimke Weld was reading a circular about an oration for Liberty Day at Lincoln. Angelina and her sister, Sarah Weld, were daughters of Judge Grimke from Charleston. It is a mystery of life but, having grown up in a slave society, Angelina and Sarah became outspoken abolitionists. They could not abide enslavement of their fellow man. Blowback developed against the two Grimke sisters throughout Charleston and the South. The southern outrage and hostility forced Angelina and Sarah to leave their native South forever in the 1830s and 1840s.
Now, Angelina, the wife of the prominent abolitionist and American Anti-Slavery leader Theodore Weld, was reading about a black student with a unique name at Lincoln. What were the odds that her family had owned this young orator named Archibald Henry Grimke? She thought long and hard about it. She consulted with her husband, Theodore, and her sister, Sarah. They all agreed Angelina should reach out to the black student and see if there was any family relation.
The letter reached Archibald at Lincoln. One can only image his reaction!
Archibald wrote back “I am the son of Henry Grimke, the brother of Dr. John Grimke, and therefore your brother. Of course, you know more about my father than I do.”
The Welds were thunderstruck as they read the letter. Archibald and his brother, Francis, were the nephews of Angelina! Thus began one of the most heartwarming family reconciliation moments in American history. Angelina and Theodore, passionate abolitionists, were overwhelmed. Angelina wanted to know more, everything about her nephews. She especially feared rape and unbridled lust by her brother, Henry, upon the body of Nancy. Archibald relayed how his father began to see Nancy and envisioned his sons by Nancy as part of the Grimke family.
The Welds encouraged Archibald and Francis to consider themselves part of the family. This was Henry’s wish. Angelina made sure Archibald and Francis had enough money to complete their education. They visited the two brothers on campus at Lincoln. The brothers would become regular visitors at the Weld home.
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The 1870s and the 1880s
In 1870, Archibald received his bachelor’s degree from Lincoln. He followed up with a master’s degree in 1872 at Lincoln as well. His plan was to continue into law school at Lincoln. However the Panic of 1873 caused the nascent law school to close its doors.
In 1872, Archibald won a scholarship to study law at Harvard. The financial backing of the Welds also came in handy. Archibald changed course, relocated to Boston and enrolled in Harvard Law School.
When Archibald obtained his law degree in 1874, he was the second black graduate of Harvard Law School.
Grimke family members were invested in the practice of law for generations. And so the family took great interest in Archibald’s legal career. Would he practice law in the North? Would Archibald return to the South and practice law? In the year 1874, was there a future as a lawyer in the South?
Given his experience as a slave of his half-brother in Charleston, the whole idea of a southern life did not appeal to Archibald. He made his decision and silenced the family debate. He would cast his fortunes in the North.
In 1875, Archibald was admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. He went into practice for one year with lawyer William I. Bowditch, a white lawyer. The affiliation benefitted Archibald but, the following year, he founded a partnership with James H. Wolff. This partnership lasted until 1884 when Archibald formed a partnership with Butler Ronald Wilson, a recent black graduate of Boston University School of Law.
As the 1880s wore on, it became clear that the practice of law was not Archibald’s calling. His practice was not lucrative. To make ends meet, Archibald turned to journalism. He edited a black newspaper, The Hub, with his law partner Wilson. He became a prolific writer. More and more of this time was spent writing bibliographies of William Lloyd Garrison, Charles Sumner, and Denmark Vesey.
It was no surprise that, around 1887, Archibald decided to dissolve the law firm,
The Autumn of a Career
Archibald parlayed his writing into government positions. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed Archibald U.S. Consul in Santo Domingo. He would serve in this position until 1898.
Archibald came into his own as a public intellectual after the turn of the century. His brother, Francis, developed the “American Negro Academy” and Archibald served as President of the Academy from 1903 to 1916. Archibald moved to Washington, D.C. and gained increasing influence as a writer and intellectual.
In 1913 and in the capstone of his career, Archibald was chosen President of the 1,164-member Washington Chapter of the NAACP. He used his national platform to challenge the Jim Crow segregation policies of the Woodrow Wilson administration.
Conclusion: The slave son of a white lawyer and a mixed-race slave would one day go toe to toe with the President of the United States. And the conflict was segregation in federal offices. Could Henry Grimke and Nancy Weston have foreseen such a future for their first-born son on August 17, 1849? Archibald Grimke passed away in Washington, D.C, in 1930 embraced by his Grimke kin as family.
Archibald earned the faith of his aunts Angelina and Sarah, the kinship wish of his father Henry, and the high achievement in life counter to the low expectations of his half-brother, Montague, and his Uncle Frederick Grimke who “believed that the Negro was racially inferior to the white man and could never measure up to the responsibilities of middle-class democracy”.
Archibald Henry Grimke (1849 - 1930)
Wow.