Charlotte Forten Grimke

January 1, 1863, the date that President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, was a day of joyous victory celebrations for all abolitionists. On that day, Charlotte Forten, born in 1837 into a wealthy, educated black family in Philadelphia, was serving as a volunteer on the island of Port Royal off the coast of South Carolina. The Union troops who controlled the island had set up a camp where refugee slaves could be safely lodged and offered work and literacy training. As part of the so-called Port Royal Experiment, Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, a white Boston abolitionist, had begun training young African American men for service in the Union army. Forten recorded in her journal the events of January 1, 1863, highlighting ceremonies marking the Emancipation Proclamation and a dress parade of African American soldiers. After the war, Forten...