On August 17, 1849 Archibald Henry Grimke was born near Charleston, South Carolina. Grimke was a lawyer, author, and a diplomat. He championed for the civil and equal rights of African-American Americans.
Grimke received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1870 and his Master of Arts degree in 1872 from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. He was able to graduate from Harvard Law School in 1874, and practiced law in Boston. He married Sarah E. Stanley and began his career as a civil rights spokesman and author.
Grimke was an editor for the Boston newspaper The Hub from 1883 to 1885, devoted to the welfare of African Americans. He also was a columnist for several newspapers such as the Atlantic Monthly.
During Woodrow Wilson’s presidency, Grimke protested segregation of government employees. He was national director of the NAACP and testified against segregation before the House Committee on Reform in the Civil Service. In 1919, the NAACP awarded him the Spingarn Medal.
Grimke was president of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association and a member of both the Authors’ Club of London and the United States and of the American Social Science Association.
