BOSTON’s most accomplished lawyers, historians,
and activists. He was one of three sons born to the
enslaved Nancy Weston and her owner, Henry
Grimké of South Carolina. He enrolled at LIN-
COLN UNIVERSITY and earned bachelor’s and
master’s degrees before attending HARVARDUNI-
VERSITYLaw School, from which he graduated in
- During his career, he served as consul to
Santo Domingo, editor of the Boston Hub,and
member of the AMERICANNEGROACADEMY,a
prestigious intellectual society that Alexander
Crummell founded in 1897.
Grimké produced the majority of his published
work in the decades before the Harlem Renais-
sance. These included biographies of William
Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner, prominent
Bostonians and ardent abolitionists. He was, how-
ever, actively involved in organizations that were
at the core of the movement. In Boston he was the
chapter president of the NATIONALASSOCIATION
FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
(NAACP). He later served as vice president of the
national organization. The NAACP honored
Grimké in 1919 when it awarded him the SPIN-
GARNMEDAL, a prize given to outstanding figures
for their impressive contributions to African-
American progress and uplift.
Bibliography
Bruce, Dickson. Archibald Grimké: Portrait of a Black In-
dependent.Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University
Press, 1993.
Grimké, Angelina W. “A Biographical Sketch of
Archibald Grimké.” Opportunity (February 1925):
44–47.
“Grist in the Mill” Wallace Thurman(1926)
A brusque short story by WALLACETHURMAN.It
provides acerbic and impatient profiles of the cen-
tral characters, none of whom seem to possess
agency enough to be called protagonists. Colonel
Charles Summers and his wife are white southern-
ers who embody the old South. Thurman charac-
terizes the Colonel as “an anachronistic relic from
pre-civil war days, being one of those rare sons of a
dyed-in-the-wool southern father who had re-
tained all the traditionary characteristics of his pa-
trician papa.” Mrs. Summers fares no better. Her
servants refer to her as “Worrisum bitch,” and she
fails to participate in important decisions regarding
her husband’s health.
When the Colonel is injured during a raid on
a gambling camp, he sustains injuries that require
a blood transfusion. His wife fails to recommend a
suitable donor, and unbeknownst to him, he re-
ceives blood from a transient and perennially un-
lucky man named Zacharia. The hospital staff
save the Colonel’s life, but because of his stingy
ways, they take a perverse pleasure in replenish-
ing, but tainting, his blood with that of an
African-American donor.
The accident that injures the Colonel occurs
at the same time that Zacharia is caught in a gam-
bling raid and imprisoned for disorderly conduct.
He acts the part of the accidental prisoner. He is
more intrigued with the sock of coins that he won
in the interrupted gambling session than he is
about his lasting incarceration in the local jail. In
the absence of a real villain, Zacharia is tried and
found guilty for the death of a deputy sheriff. On
the eve of his execution, Zacharia’s request to see
the Colonel is granted. Again, this occurs through
happenstance. The interview does not succeed in
protecting Zacharia, who appears to petition the
Colonel for protection. He makes his claim be-
cause it is his blood that saved the colonel’s life.
The Colonel eventually dies of the shock but not
before he checks his body for signs of color or finds
himself haunted by birds that seem to be cawing
the word nigaw.
Thurman’s tale of stark realism suggests an im-
patience with social stigma and imagined trauma.
“Grist in the Mill” is a disturbing story of two men
who both face death and have the power to help
each other avoid it. While Thurman exposes the
tragic implications of racism and mob law, he also
suggests that a wicked fatalism rules the world.
The opening lines of the story confirm the tale’s
inevitable tragedy. “This is indeed an accidental
cosmos,” writes Thurman. “And to make matters
more intriguing, more terrifying, there seems to be
a universal accompaniment of mocking laughter,
coming from the ethereal regions as well as from
the more mundane spheres.” Such lines convey the
author’s dismay and the story’s depiction of sense-
less tragedy and the life-threatening dimensions of
enforced racial segregation.206 “Grist in the Mill”