author
Archibald Henry Grimké
1849–1930
Born into slavery in South Carolina, he rose to become a Harvard-trained lawyer, writer, diplomat, and one of the early voices for Black civil rights in America. His life bridges Reconstruction, the fight against segregation, and the beginnings of the NAACP.
8 Audiobooks
Right on the Scaffold, or The Martyrs of 1822 The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 7
by Archibald Henry Grimké
William Lloyd Garrison, the Abolitionist
by Archibald Henry Grimké
The Ultimate Criminal
by Archibald Henry Grimké
The Negro and the elective franchise. A series of papers and a sermon
by Archibald Henry Grimké, Charles C. (Charles Chauveau) Cook, Francis J. (Francis James) Grimké, John Hope, John L. Love, Kelly Miller
Papers of the American Negro Academy. (The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers, No. 18-19.)
by Archibald Henry Grimké, John Wesley Cromwell, Lafayette M. Hershaw, William Pickens, Arthur Alfonso Schomburg, T. G. (Theophilus Gould) Steward
The Ballotless Victim of One-Party Governments The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 16
by Archibald Henry Grimké
Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12
by Archibald Henry Grimké
Charles Sumner Centenary: Historical Address The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14
by Archibald Henry Grimké
About the author
Born on August 17, 1849, in Charleston, South Carolina, he was the son of Henry W. Grimké, a white planter, and Nancy Weston, an enslaved woman. After the Civil War, he attended schools for freedpeople, graduated from Lincoln University, and went on to Harvard Law School, becoming part of a remarkable generation of Black intellectuals shaping public life after emancipation.
He built a career as a lawyer, journalist, and public speaker, and also served as U.S. consul to the Dominican Republic in the 1890s. In his writing and activism, he argued forcefully for equal rights and challenged racial injustice at a time when segregation and disenfranchisement were hardening across the United States.
Grimké is also remembered as an important early civil rights leader in Washington, D.C., and as a figure connected to the founding era of the NAACP. For listeners interested in American history, his story is compelling not only because of what he achieved, but because it shows how determination, education, and moral clarity could be turned into lasting public influence.