“At times I feel it almost impossible not to despond entirely of there ever being a better, brighter day for us. None but those who experience it can know what it is—this constant, galling sense of cruel injustice and wrong. I cannot help feeling it very often—it intrudes upon my happiest moments, and spreads a dark, deep gloom over everything.”

~Charlotte Forten Grimke

African American anti-slavery activist, poet, and educator Charlotte Forten Grimké was born on this day in 1837.