Photo Credit from http://thelionofanacostia.wordpress.com/ Today I am highlighting the final Pastor from the Faithful Preacher: Recapturing the Vision of Three Pioneering African-American Pastors by Thabiti M. Anyabwile. His name is Rev. Francis James Grimké. He was born to a slave mother, Nancy Weston, in 1850 and her owner, Henry Grimké. The elder Grimké was a well respected Jurist in South Carolina. He helped to draft the Slave codes that I mentioned yesterday in our discussion of Daniel Payne. In Lift Up Thy Voice: The Sarah and Angelina Grimké Family’s Journey from Slaveholders to Civil Rights Leaders by Mark Perry, which highlights the rise of Francis Grimké's older sisters, Sarah recalled her father scolding her harshly for teaching her slave to read. The Grimké Sisters would go on to become leading abolitionists. When the elder Grimké died Francis and his 2 brothers were given to his half-brother with the "understanding" that they would be regarded as family.
