Rhetoric Race and Religion
For over half a century, Francis Grimke (1850-1937) held the reputation of being one of the leading African American clergy in the U.S. During the infamous Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, Grimke found a prophetic voice which he used to proclaim the gospel of Christ over and against social ills which plagued the nation.
Born in Charleston, South Carolina to a slave mother, Nancy Weston, and her owner, Henry Grimke, Francis was the nephew of the well-known abolitionist sisters Angelina and Sarah Moore Grimke. Losing his father at age five and later resorting to joining the Confederate army in order to escape enslavement by his late father’s brother, Grimke survived a tumultuous upbringing which eventually landed him in Massachusetts, where he worked in a shoe factory and lived in a barn. However, with the assistance of his aunts, Francis eventually found himself enrolled at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. Grimke thrived in school. After graduating valedictorian, he sought a law degree at Lincoln and Howard university, before finally deciding to pursue ordained ministry at Princeton Theological Seminary, where Charles Hodge was closing in on his half-century of leadership. After graduating from Seminary, Grimke served for some 60 years at 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington DC, with the exception of a four year stint in Jacksonville FL (1885-89).
Here, I’d like to consider a number of excerpts from Grimke’s published works which shed light on his vocation as a clergyman and civil rights leader. Grimke offers a perspective which emphasizes the spiritual mission of the church and the need for christian principle in society as two complementary components of the gospel ministry.
Given ongoing political-theological debates in American Reformed circles, Grimke’s perspective is instructive for at least three reasons:
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