Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958). Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
| Angelina Weld Grimké | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 27 1880 Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died |
October 10 1958 (aged 78) New York City, New York, United States |
| Education | Wellesley College |
| Occupation | prose author, journalist, poet |
Angelina Weld Grimké (February 27, 1880 - June 10, 1958) was an African-American poet, journalist, teacher, and playwright who was part of the Harlem Renaissance.[1]
Life[]
Family[]
Grimké was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a biracial family whose ancestors included slaveholders, abolitionists, European-American slaves, and Midwesterners. Her father, Archibald Grimké, was a lawyer, the 2nd black man to have graduated from Harvard Law School. He was appointed consul to the Dominican Republic from 1894 through 1898. Her mother, Sarah (Stanley), was a white woman from a Midwestern middle-class family, about whom information is scarce.
Grimké's parents met in Boston. Archibald Grimké had established a law practice there after completing law school. He and Sarah Stanley married but faced much opposition from her family, due to concerns over race. The marriage did not last very long. Not too long after Angelina's birth, Sarah left the family and took Angelina with her to the Midwest. After Sarah began a career of her own, she sent Angelina, then 7, back to Massachusetts to live with her father. Angelina would have little to no contact with her mother after that. Sarah Stanley committed suicide several years later.
Grimké's great aunts,Sarah and Angelina Grimké, were famous abolitionists. Her paternal grandfather was their brother Henry Grimké, of their large, slaveholding family based in Charleston, South Carolina. Her paternal grandmother was Nancy (Weston), an enslaved woman, with whom Henry became involved after becoming a widower. They lived together and had 3 sons, Archibald, Francis and John.
Her uncle, Francis J. Grimké, graduated from Lincoln University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and became a Presbyterian minister in Washington, DC. He married abolitionist poet and diarist Charlotte Forten Grimke, of the prominent black abolitionist family from Philadelphia.
Grimké was also related to John Grimké Drayton of Magnolia Plantation.
Youth[]
Between 1894 and 1898, Angelina lived with her uncle and aunt in Washington, DC, while her father served as consul in the Dominican Republic.
Angelina Grimké attended the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics (now Wellesley College). After graduating, she moved to Washington, D.C. with her father. In 1902, she began teaching English at Armstrong Manual Training school. She then left this position in 1916 to teach at the legendary Dunbar High School, where one of her pupils was poet/playwright May Miller.[2] In addition, she frequently took classes at Harvard University during the summers.
Career[]
Grimké wrote essays, short stories and poems which were published in The Crisis, Opportunity, The New Negro, Caroling Dusk, and Negro Poets and Their Poems. Some of her more famous poems include, "The Eyes of My Regret", "At April", and "Trees". She was an active writer and activist included among the figures of the Harlem Renaissance. She counted as one of her friends during that time the poet Georgia Douglas Johnson.
Grimké also wrote a play called Rachel, one of the earliest plays to protest lynching and racial violence. She wrote the 3-act drama for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to rally public support against the recently released film The Birth of a Nation. The play was produced in 1916 in Washington, D.C., performed by an all-black cast. It was published in 1920.
After her father died, Grimké left Washington, DC, for New York, where she lived a reclusive life in Brooklyn. She died in 1958.
Writing[]
The Dictionary of Literary Biography: African-American writers Before the Harlem Renaissance, Vol. 50, 1986, states that: "In several poems and in her diaries Grimké expressed the frustration that her lesbianism created; thwarted longing is a theme in several poems" (151). Some of her unpublished poems are more explicitly lesbian, implying that she lived a life of suppression, "both personal and creative” (155).
Publications[]
Play[]
- Rachel; a play in three acts. Boston: Cornhill, 1920; College Park, MD: McGrath, 1969.
Non-fiction[]
- Slavery and the Boston Riot. Philadelphia: 1835.
- An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South. New York: Anti-Slavery Society, 1836; New York: Arno Press, 1969.
- published in UK as Slavery in America: A reprint of an appeal to the Christian women of the slave states of America. Edinburgh: T. Oliphant, 1837.
- An Appeal to the Women of the Nominally Free States. Boston: Isaac Knapp, 1838.
- Letter from Angelina Grimke Weld, to the Woman's Rights Convention, held at Syracuse, Sept., 1852. Syracuse, NY: Masters Print, 1852.
Collected editions[]
- The Public Years of Sarah and Angelina Grimké: Selected writings, 1835-1839 (edited by Larry Ceplair). New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
- Selected works of Angelina Weld Grimké (edited by Carolivia Herron). New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Letters and journals[]
- Letters to Catherine E. Beecher: In reply to An essay on slavery and abolitionism, addressed to A.E. Grimke. Boston: I. Knapp, 1838; Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1971.
- Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké and Sarah Grimké, 1822-1844 (edited by Theodore Dwight Weld & Gilbert Hobbs Barnes). New York & Loncon: D. Appleton-Century, 1934; Gloucester, MA: petr Smith, 1965.
- Walking by Faith: The diary of Angelina Grimké, 1828-1835 (edited by Charles Wilbanks. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[2]
"Dawn" by Angelina Weld Grimke
"A Mona Lisa," by Angelina Weld Grimké
See also[]
References[]
- Carol Sears Botsch (1997-02-18). "Archibald Grimke". University of South Carolina-Aiken. http://www.usca.edu/aasc/grimke.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-15.
- Perry, Mark, Lift Up Thy Voice: The Grimke Family's Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders, New York: Viking Penguin, 2002. ISBN 978-0142001035
- Shockley, Ann Allen, Afro-American Women Writers 1746-1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide, New Haven, Connecticut: Meridian Books, 1989. ISBN 0-452-00981-2
Notes[]
- ↑ Audre Lorde, "A burst of light: Living with cancer", A Burst of Light, Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1988, page 73
- ↑ Search results = au:Angelina Weld Grimké, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Sep. 1, 2014.
External links[]
- Poems
- Angelina Weld Grimké 1880-1958 at Isle of Lesbos (4 poems)
- Angelina W. Grimke at AfroPoets (8 poems)
- Angelina Weld Grimkè at AllPoetry (9 poems)
- Additional Poems by Grimkè
- Books
- Angelina Weld Grimkè at Amazon.com
- About
- Angelina Weld Grimke 1880-1958 at PAL: Perspectives in American Literature
- Angelina Weld Grimkè (1880-1958) at Modern American Poetry
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