Francis James Grimké In his sermons, Grimke emphasized honesty, Rev. Francis J. Grimke hard work, spiritual principles, and preached against Change the World through the Gospel worldly evils. He encouraged his fellow African by Victoria McAfee Americans to put their trust in God as they endured injustices and Jim Crow laws. He believed God would Francis J. Grimke was born in 1850. He was the give them the perseverance to overcome victoriously son of a rice plantation owner, Henry Grimke, and as He did for the Israelites, but they must also fight Nancy Weston, a slave of African and European for their rights: “We must agitate, and agitate, and descent. When Francis was two years old, Henry agitate, and go on agitating until blacks are accorded Grimke died of yellow fever. His will freed Francis, their full rights….We are not going to secure our but placed him under the guardianship of his white rights in this land without a struggle.” While he never half-brother, Montague, Henry’s oldest son. When used his church or services as a center for radical Francis turned 10, Montague threatened to enslave agitation or political action, Grimke regularly used his him. Francis ran away and joined the Confederate sermons to point out injustices he saw in society. Army as an officer’s valet. Months later, Montague Grimke never understood or condoned segregation imprisoned Frances while he was visiting his family. in the Christian church and passionately argued for Montague sold him to another officer even while racial justice. He praised evangelists such as D.L. Francis was recovering from a deathly illness. Moody and Billy Sunday for their soul-winning and Francis was freed by the end of the war. their stands against moral evils, but also criticized Grimke’s white aunts were Quaker abolitionists, them for not speaking up against the evil of racism. Angelina and Sarah Grimke. In 1868, they He urged all pastors to speak out against racism. acknowledged Francis and his brother Archibald as Grimke was encouraged when Woodrow Wilson their relatives and gave financial backing for them was elected president in 1912 with promises to reform to attend Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. After government and society. But when reforms did not graduating as valedictorian of his class, Francis happen, and black soldiers in World War I fought answered God’s call to the ministry, continuing his in segregated units without being allowed to enter education at Princeton Theological Seminary. officer’s training, Grimke wrote a letter accusing In 1878, Grimke began his pastoral ministry at the Wilson of abandoning his “lofty principles.” 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Until his death in 1937, Grimke preached and He served this same church for 50 years until 1928. advocated a Christianity that confronted society’s His convicting sermons ignited a spiritual revival. wrongs in order to change them. On the 40th Congressmen and Supreme Court justices frequently anniversary of his graduation from Princeton attended Sunday services to hear Grimke preach. Seminary, he wrote that through the years “[I] tried to In 1878, Francis married Charlotte L. Forten of do two things with all my might: to preach the gospel Philadelphia, an abolitionist and teacher. They had of the grace of God—to get men to see their need of one daughter who died in infancy. a savior, and to accept Jesus Christ as the way, the Grimke was a brilliant orator and an articulate truth, the life, [and] to fight race prejudice, because opponent of racism. He set forth the Gospel and the I believe it is utterly un-Christian, and it is doing Bible as the way to change people and society. “I place almost more than anything else to curse our own land my hope not on government,” he said, “not on politi- and the world at large.” cal parties but on faith in the power of the religion of Jesus Christ to conquer all prejudices, to break down all walls of separation, and to weld together men of all races in one great brotherhood.” Ida B. Wells the previous 10 years alone, she discovered, 728 black men and Ida B. Wells women had been lynched in the United States, many without by Victoria Johnson charges or a trial. Her thorough research resulted in the publica- “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” tion of “Southern Horrors: Lynch Laws in All Its Phases,” which Ida B. Wells-Barnett was a fearless anti-lynching crusader, brought her national and international attention. suffragist, women’s rights advocate, journalist, and speaker. Ida lashed out at anyone who did not vigorously protest Wherever she saw injustice against African Americans, she injustices to African Americans. She highly criticized Booker worked to set it right. T. Washington as being too accommodating of segregation and Ida’s mother was a deeply religious woman who was con- voting discrimination. When a black postmaster was lynched, cerned about the dignity of people of color. She instilled biblical she went with a Congressional delegation to President William principles in Ida, who on Sundays was only permitted to study McKinley, urging him to sponsor federal legislation against the Bible. It was a book Ida read repeatedly throughout her life. lynching. Ida was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1862, the el- She also challenged evangelist D.L. Moody for continuing dest of eight children. Her father served on the board of Rust to speak to segregated audiences and refusing to condemn racial College, which was started for freed black students. Ida took injustices. She spoke at several church denominational meet- classes there with her mother, who came along to learn to read ings around the country, urging them to condemn segregation and write. and lynching, but none did. She wrote, “Where were all the When Ida was only 16, a yellow fever epidemic swept legal and civil authorities of the country, to say nothing of the through Holly Springs and killed her parents and youngest Christian churches, that they permitted such things to be? I brother. Ida provided for her five sisters and secured a job could only say that despite the axiom that there is a remedy for teaching for $25 a month. After a year, she moved with the two every wrong, everybody in authority from the President of the youngest sisters to Memphis to teach for a higher salary and United States down, had declared their inability to do anything; live with her aunt, while her other siblings stayed behind with and that the Christian bodies and moral associations do not relatives. touch the question.” In Tennessee, Ida started her first civil rights campaign. In In 1893 Ida moved to Chicago, and with Jane Addams she 1884, a railroad conductor asked Ida to give up her seat on the successfully blocked the establishment of segregated schools in train to a white man and ordered her into the segregated “Jim Chicago. Also in Chicago, she helped start the Negro Fellow- Crow” car, which was already crowded with passengers. Ida ship League when the Sunday school class she was teaching resisted and was forcefully removed from the train as the white discussed a lynching in Springfield, Illinois. She encouraged passengers applauded. When she returned to Memphis, she sued the class to do something, so they began providing lodging and the railroad and wrote about her struggle in The Living Way, employment opportunities for black men who had moved north. a local church paper. She won her case in circuit court, but In 1895, Ida married F.L. Barnett, a journalist and lawyer the railroad appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court, which from Chicago and owner of the city’s major black newspaper. reversed the decision. After the court loss, she wrote in her They had four children. Ida arranged for her children to be diary that if it were possible, she “would gather my race in my cared for so she could go on speaking engagements or she took arms and fly away with them. Oh God, is there no redress, no them with her. She firmly believed in the dignity of working peace, and no justice in this land for us? Come to my aid at this mothers. moment and teach me what to do, for I am sorely, bitterly disap- In 1906, she joined with W.E.B. DuBois and others to help pointed. Show us the way.” found the National Association for the Advancement of Col- Ida started writing for local papers about the poor conditions ored People (NAACP), and she also worked with the women’s in Memphis schools where she was teaching. Her contract was suffrage movement. During the 1913 march of 5,000 women not renewed. The Rev. R. Nightingale invited Wells to become for universal suffrage in Washington, D.C., the white Illinois a partner in the Free Speech and Headlight, an anti-segregationist marchers asked her to march in the rear with the other black newspaper. women. Ida refused and walked up front. A turning point came for Ida in 1892 when a mob attacked All her life, Ida reported on discrimination, lynching, and three young, black Memphis grocery store owners to stop them race riots around the country. In 1922, she went to Arkansas to from competing with white businesses. Shots were fired, killing interview 12 black farmers wrongly charged with starting a riot. three white men. The three black men were jailed for trial, but She prayed with them and said, “The God you serve is the God a mob broke into the jail and lynched them.