CHRONOLOGY

1784	John Faucheraud Grimké marries Mary Smith in Charleston. He is descended from German and French Huguenot stock; she is from an English and Scottish family. Together they will have fourteen children, of whom eleven will survive into adulthood.
1792	Sarah Moore Grimké—sometimes called Sally by her family—is born, the sixth child and second daughter of John Grimké and Mary Smith Grimké. She is a precocious child.
1801	Henry Grimké, the ninth child of the family, is born.
1805	Angelina Emily Grimké is born, the thirteenth child of John Grimké and Mary Smith Grimké. She is closest to her sister Sarah, whom she calls Mother.
1817	Sarah Grimké converts to Presbyterianism; the next year her sister Angelina refuses confirmation in the Episcopal Church.
1819	Judge John Faucheraud Grimké dies at Long Branch, in New Jersey, after a long illness. He has been nursed, in his last months, by his daughter Sarah.
1820	The Missouri Compromise is passed.
1821	Sarah Grimké moves to Philadelphia and joins the Quaker community.
1822	Denmark Vesey’s conspiracy is unearthed in Charleston.
1824	Charles Grandison Finney begins his ministry in upstate New York.
1829	David Walker issues his “Appeal” in Boston.
1831	Nat Turner’s rebellion breaks out. In Boston, William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator. Theodore Dwight Weld takes up his ministry in New York.
1833	Great Britain abolishes slavery; in the United States, the American Anti-Slavery Society is formed in Philadelphia.
1834	The Lane Seminary Debates are held in Cincinnati; Lane’s seminarians call for “immediate emancipation.”
1835	The “Abolition Summer” sees the beginning of widespread attacks on the abolitionist movement. Angelina Grimké writes to Garrison in support of the abolitionist cause.
1836	Angelina Grimké writes “An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.” Her sister Sarah writes “An Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States.”
1837	The abolitionist publisher Owen Lovejoy is murdered in Alton, Illinois. Angelina Grimké writes her “Letters to Catherine Beecher.” Sarah Grimké publishes her own “Letters on the Equality of the Sexes.”
1838	Angelina Grimké testifies before a special committee of the Massachusetts legislature. Angelina and Sarah Grimké deliver a series of six lectures on the rights of women. Angelina Grimké marries Theodore Dwight Weld in Boston.
1839	Weld and Grimké publish Slavery as It Is. Mary Smith Grimké dies in Charleston.
1843	Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston begin their relationship in South Carolina.
1848	The Seneca Falls Convention is held in upstate New York.
1849	Archibald Grimké, the first son of Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston, is born in South Carolina.
1850	Francis Grimké, the second son of Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston, is born in South Carolina. The Compromise of 1850 is authored in Washington, postponing a divisive break between North and South. The Fugitive Slave Act is passed by the U.S. Congress.
1852	Henry Grimké dies in South Carolina. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is published. John Grimké, the third son of Henry Grimké and Nancy Weston, is born in Charleston, two months after his father’s death.
1854	The Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed, fueling bitter feelings between the North and South. The Eagleswood School is opened in New Jersey by Theodore Dwight Weld, Angelina Grimké Weld, and Sarah Grimké.
1859	John Brown leads an attack on the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry.
1861	The Civil War begins when Confederate forces open fire on Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor.
1863	Abraham Lincoln issues the Emancipation Proclamation. Both Archibald and Francis Grimké are in hiding in Charleston as Union forces close in on the city. Charlotte Forten travels to Port Royal, South Carolina, and begins her famous journal. Theodore Dwight Weld tours the West on behalf of the antislavery movement.
1865	Charleston is liberated. Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox. The Welds and Sarah Grimké move to Hyde Park, Massachusetts.
1866	Archibald and Francis Grimké are admitted to Lincoln University, outside Philadelphia.
1868	Angelina Grimké Weld meets Archibald and Francis Grimké at Lincoln University.
1870	Angelina Weld and Sarah Grimké “vote” in a local election in Hyde Park.
1873	Sarah Moore Grimké dies in Hyde Park. Francis Grimké begins studies at Howard University.
1874	Archibald Grimké attends Harvard University.
1875	Francis Grimké leaves Howard to attend the Princeton Theological Seminary.
1877	Francis Grimké is named assistant pastor of the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. A special commission awards Republican Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency—called “the Great Betrayal” by former abolitionists.
1879	Archibald Grimké marries Sarah Stanley. Angelina Grimké dies in Hyde Park. Francis Grimké marries Charlotte Forten.
1880	Angelina Weld Grimké, the daughter of Archibald and Sarah Stanley Grimké, is born.
1883	Sarah Stanley leaves Archibald Grimké, taking their daughter, Angelina, with her to Michigan.
1884	Archibald Grimké gives his “Madonna of the South” address.
1887	Angelina Weld Grimké returns to Boston to live with her father.
1891	Archibald Grimké publishes his biography of William Lloyd Garrison, to be followed a year later by his biography of Charles Sumner.
1894	Archibald Grimké is named consul in Santo Domingo.
1895	Theodore Dwight Weld dies in Boston. Booker T. Washington delivers his “Atlanta Exposition Address,” otherwise known as the Atlanta Compromise. Nancy Weston Grimké dies in Washington, D.C.
1898	Archibald Grimké returns from the Dominican Republic. He joins the American Negro Academy and inaugurates the “great debate” with Booker T. Washington.
1903	William Monroe Trotter and Booker T. Washington confront each other during the “Boston Riot.” Angelina Weld Grimké and her father argue bitterly about her life. W. E. B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk is published.
1904	The Carnegie Hall Conference is held in New York, in an attempt to resolve the Grimké/Trotter–Booker T. Washington controversy.
1906	Archibald Grimké publishes “The Heart of the Race Problem,” written two years earlier.
1907	Archibald and Francis Grimké break with William Monroe Trotter, and Archibald joins the Niagara Movement.
1909	Francis Grimké is named to the “Committee of Forty.”
1910	The Committee of Forty establishes the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, ending the division among the nation’s black leaders.
1913	Archibald Grimké is appointed to head the Washington, D.C., chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
1914	Charlotte Forten Grimké dies in Washington, D.C.
1915	John Grimké, estranged from his brothers, dies in Florida.
1915	Angelina Weld Grimké writes Rachel, the first example of what would come to be called the Harlem Renaissance.
1919	Archibald Grimké is awarded the Spingarn Medal for outstanding leadership of the black community.
1930	Archibald Grimké dies in Washington, D. C.
1937	Francis Grimké dies in Washington, D.C.
1958	After years of self-imposed obscurity, Angelina Weld Grimké dies a recluse in New York City.