Charlotte Forten Case

Charlotte Forten was born August 17,1837 in Philadelphia, Pennslyvania. She was born into a wealthy and influential African-American family. Her family were activists for Black causes and Charlotte proved to be just as influential an activist of civil rights. Charlotte Forten is best known for her personal writings, which offered insight into late 19th century America. She kept diaries which chronicle the social and political issues of the times, the fight to end slavery, the civil war, and the state of race relations. Charlotte also kept a diary of her involvement with the abolition movement and became the first African American hired to teach white students in Salem, Massuchusets. Unfortunately, she had to resign after two years because she became ill with Tuberculosis. She then returned to Philadelphia and started to write poetry as she tried to regain her health. She will later begin teaching again as she feels better.

During the Civil War, the Union Army took over Port Royal, a Confederate military base in South Carolina. The area was home to thousands of slaves who had been abandoned by their owners. Many of them lived in isolation on the Sea Islands off the coast. The former slaves were largely illiterate, and some did not know English. The Union Army wanted to help these people learn to live independently on local lands. On South Carolina's sea islands, a black cabinetmaker began teaching openly after having convertly operated a school for years. In 1862 nothern missionaries arrived on the Sea Islands to begin teaching. Charlotte was one of the missionaries who traveled down south to teach. Forten followed by two white women Laura Towne and Ellen Murray, opened Penn school on St. Helena Island as part of the Port Royal experiment. There were 138 children and 58 adults enrolled in thier school. As she began teaching, she found that many of her pupils spoke only Gullah and were unfamiliar with the routines of school. Though she wanted to feel a bond with the islanders, her temperament, upbringing and education set her apart, and she found she had more in common with the white abolitionists there. For 18 months, Forten worked with children, adults and soldiers stationed there as part of this program. The only African-American teacher to participate in the experiment, Forten's efforts to help the project became a personal mission.

Her efforts often reached outside the classroom, and she found herself visiting the homes of the various families in order to instill "self-pride, self-respect, and self-sufficiency," she once wrote. Forten wrote about her experiences in her diary, and a series of her entries were later published in the form

...