Sarah grimké wikipedia

Grimke family tree

Charlotte L. Her grandfather, James Forten , was a well-to-do sail-maker and abolitionist. Her father, Robert Bridges Forten, maintained both the business and the abolitionism. Charlotte Forten continued her family's traditions. As a teenager, having been sent to Salem, Massachusetts, for her education, she actively joined that community of radical abolitionists identified with William Lloyd Garrison.

She also entered enthusiastically into the literary and intellectual. Some of her earliest poetry was published in antislavery journals during her student years. And she began to keep a diary, published almost a century later, which remains one of the most valuable accounts of that era. Completing her education, Forten became a teacher, initially in Salem and later in Philadelphia.

Unfortunately, she soon began to suffer from ill health, which would plague her for the rest of her life. Nevertheless, while unable to sustain her efforts in the classroom for any length of time, she did continue to write and to engage in anti-slavery activity. With the outbreak of the Civil War , she put both her convictions and her training to use, joining other abolitionists on the liberated islands off the South Carolina coast to teach and work with the newly emancipated slaves.

On the Sea Islands, she also kept a diary, which was also later published. This second diary, and two essays she wrote at the time for the Atlantic Monthly , are among the most vivid accounts of the abolitionist experiment. Like many teachers, Forten felt a cultural distance from the freedpeople but worked with dedication to teach and prove the value of emancipation.

After the war, she continued her work for the freedpeople, accepting a position in Massachusetts with the Freedmen's Union Commission.