Gallery
from “Some Reflections: Growing Out of the Recent
Epidemic of Influenza that Afflicted Our City”
Reading Loop
1918 Suite: What Was Not His to Keep
Francis J. Grimké (1850–1937) was born the enslaved son of a white plantation owner in Charleston, South Carolina, and an enslaved mother of European and African descent. Graduating from Lincoln College in 1870, he entered graduate studies at Princeton Theological Seminary where he graduated in 1878. As a Presbyterian minister, he was best known for his work promoting equal rights for African Americans. An active community leader, Grimké led the congregation of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., from 1885 until 1928. He participated in the Niagara Movement, a black civil rights organization, and helped to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People with his brother Archibald Grimké in 1909. 