Grimké, Archibald Henry

Grimké, Archibald Henry, 1849–1930, African-American author and crusader for black advancement, b. near Charleston, S.C. The son of a white father and a slave mother, he was graduated from Lincoln Univ. (B.A., 1870; M.A., 1872) and, with the help of his aunt, Sarah Moore Grimké, from Harvard (LL.B., 1874). He then practiced law in Boston. His many articles and pamphlets on race problems focused attention on the double standard of justice applied to the black. He wrote biographies of William Lloyd Garrison (1891) and Charles Sumner (1892). From 1894 to 1898 he was American consul to Santo Domingo. He was president of the American Negro Academy from 1903 to 1916, and in 1919 was awarded the Spingarn medal by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for his services on behalf of the African American.

Bibliography

See biography by J. Stevenson (1969).