Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958) was a journalist, playwright, teacher, and poet and one of the first American women of color to have a play performed in public.
She was born in Boston. Her father was Archibald Grimké, a nephew of Angelina and Sarah Grimké, the son of their brother Henry and an enslaved woman. Angelina’s mother was Sarah Stanley, a white woman.
Angelina stayed for a time with her mother in the Midwest but returned to Massachusetts and lived with her father in Hyde Park from age seven to age fourteen. She attended the Fairmount School and Girls’ Latin. During the time her father served as Consul to the Dominican Republic, Angelina lived in Washington DC with her uncle Francis and his wife Charlotte Forten. She returned to the Boston area to attend the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics from which she graduated in 1902. She then began teaching in Washington and began writing. Her short stories and poems were published in The Crisis and in anthologies. In 1916, her play, Rachel, written for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was performed in Washington and New York City.
Angelina lived with her father in Washington and cared for him since he was in poor health. After he died in 1930, she moved to New York but did not publish any more work and lived a very quiet life there.
