Teacher Appreciation: Black Educators Who Saved Us - Page 6

6. Charlotte Forten Grimké (1837–1914)

A member of a prominent abolitionist family, Charlotte Forten Grimké became one of the first Black women to teach formerly enslaved people in the South during the Civil War. According to the National Park Service, as part of the Port Royal Experiment, a program designed to help newly freed communities transition to freedom, she taught in South Carolina, documenting her experiences in detailed journals that remain essential historical records. Forten became the first Black teacher in Beaufort County when she joined the staff of the Penn School on St. Helena Island.

During her time there, classes were held at Brick Baptist Church, a historic location that later honored her legacy with a commemorative marker near its entrance. Forten Grimké meticulously documented her experiences in journals and shared her observations with a wider audience through her published essay, “Life on the Sea Islands,” which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1864. She continued teaching at various schools on St. Helena Island until the Civil War’s conclusion.

Forten Grimké later taught in integrated schools in the North, a rare achievement for her time. Her commitment to racial equality and education as liberation positioned her at the intersection of abolition, women’s rights, and civil rights decades before the modern movements took shape.