As we celebrate Women’s History Month there are countless Black women we are unaware of–whose contributions to society, the country, and the world need to be shared on a wider level.
One such woman is Charlotte Forten Grimke. Charlotte Louise Forten was born in Philadelphia on August 17, 1837, into an extremely wealthy African-American family. Charlotte Forten’s grandfather and parents amassed their fortune as sailmakers and business owners in Philadelphia. Charlotte’s mother died when she was three years old from tuberculosis and she was raised by her father with the help of her aunts and grandparents.
The Forten family was prominent in the anti-enslavement movement. Charlotte Forten was educated at an early age by tutors because of the racial apartheid in the schools in Philadelphia, and her father didn’t want her to attend segregated schools. When Charlotte became an adolescent, her father, James Forten, sent her to Salem, Massachusetts, to board with Charles Lenox Remond and his family. The Redmonds were another prominent African-American abolitionist family. There she attended integrated schools. Early in her childhood Charlotte began keeping diaries, and she continued writing for the rest of her life.
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