African American Poetry (1870-1928): A Digital Anthology

Angelina Weld Grimké: Poems and Author Profile

Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958) was an accomplished poet, playwright, and teacher. She was of mixed Black and white ancestry, with a father (Archibald Grimké) active in the abolitionist movement who was himself of mixed ancestry. Her mother, Sarah Stanley, was white. Angelina W. Grimké was raised partly in Boston and partly in Washington, DC, where she lived for several years with her aunt (Charlotte Forten Grimké) and uncle (Francis Grimké). After graduating from a small college in Boston in 1902, the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, Grimke began teaching high school English in Washington, DC. She later taught at the Dunbar High School, a school where several other important figures in the Harlem Renaissance also taught. 

Today, Grimké is probably best known for her play, Rachel, which was first performed in 1916 in Washington, DC, and published in 1920. Grimké also published a number of poems in magazines like The Crisis, in the 1910s and 20s, and in 1927, a substantial number of her poems were included in Countee Cullen's important anthology, Caroling Dusk. 

Angelina Weld Grimke remained unmarried, and biographers have understood from unpublished poems as well as diaries and letters that she may have been attracted to other women. Some of her published poems describe unrequited longing that may be homoerotic in nature (see "Grass Fingers" and "A Mona Lisa" among others). 

The full text of the play Rachel can be found on Project Gutenberg here. 

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