Angelina
Weld Grimke was
born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 27th February, 1880. Her father
was the son of a wealthy white aristocrat and a slave. Angelina was
born into a family of civil-rights activists that included Angelina
Grimke, Sarah Grimke and Theodore
Weld.
After graduating from the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics in 1902
she became an English teacher in Washington. Grimke also began to
write articles and poems about racism and the problems of black people
in the United States.
A close associate of Mary Church Terrell,
Grimke was a strong advocate of women's
suffrage. Grimke also worked with Margaret
Sanger on her journal Birth Control Review.
In 1916 the National Association for the Advancement
of Coloured People (NAACP) commissioned her to write a play about
lynching. When Rachel was performed
the NAACP announced that: "This is the first attempt to use the
stage for race propaganda in order to enlighten the American people
relative to the lamentable condition of ten millions of colored citizens
in this free republic."
Other wrote by Grimke included Negro Poets
and their Poems (1923) and Caroling
Dusk (1927). Angelina Grimke died on 10th June, 1958.
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