So Much History

Aside from teaching the freed Blacks, she tended to the wounded soldiers, mended their clothes and wrote letters for them. The school was initially founded to teach enslaved Black children and eventually Black children freed during the U.S. Civil War. The Union forces divided the land, giving freedmen families plots to work independently. Forten worked with many freedmen and their children on St. Helena Island. As she began teaching, she found that many of her pupils spoke only Gullah and were unfamiliar with the routines of school.

In addition to teaching, she recorded her students’ hymns and her own experiences, which she published in two 1864 essays for the Atlantic Monthly, “Life on the Sea Islands.” The essay depicted a Black population eager to learn, support themselves and assume the new responsibilities of citizenship. Forten forged a friendship with Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the all-Black 54th Massachusetts Infantry. In her diary she recounted the courageous efforts of the 54th's storming of Fort Wagner on the night of July 18, 1863.

Forten became increasingly involved in the abolitionist movement. She published several poems in anti-slavery publications such as "The Liberator", "The National Anti-Slavery Standard" and "The Evangelist". Forten, publicly condemned slavery. She also called for Black women’s participation in the abolitionist crusade. She joined circles of significant abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Lydia Maria Child, and John Greenleaf Whittier. Forten believed in the improvement of Blacks through self-help and education.

After the war, Forten taught in Boston and Charleston, SC. In 1872, she moved to Washington, DC, where she taught at a preparatory school later known as Paul Laurence Dunbar High School. One year later she became a clerk in the Treasury Department. At forty-one years of age, in 1878, Forten married Presbyterian minister Francis J. Grimké, pastor of the prominent Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. This was a major Black congregation, and the church was used as a civil rights platform.

In 1896, Forten helped found the National Association of Colored Women. Throughout the 1890s, Charlotte published poems and essays in leading African American periodicals and organized a women’s missionary group in support of her husband’s ministry. Her poems incluced “At the Home of Frederick Douglass” and “The Corcoran Art Gallery.” Influenced by Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, her poetry is notable for the nuance of its sound and emotion. Charlotte Forten was determined to embody the intellectual potential of all Black people. She was, above all, dedicated to social justice.