The Grimkes

The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

By: Kerri K. Greenidge

Narrated by: Karen Chilton

A stunning counternarrative of the legendary abolitionist Grimke sisters that finally reclaims the forgotten Black members of their family.

The Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, have been highly revered figures in American history, lauded for leaving behind their lives as elite slave-owning women on a plantation in South Carolina to become firebrand abolitionists in the North. Yet the focus on their story has obscured the experiences of their Black relatives, the progeny of their brother, Henry, and one of the enslaved people he owned, a woman named Nancy Weston. In The Grimkes, award-winning historian Kerri K. Greenidge recovers the larger Grimke clan, demonstrating that the Black Grimke women—including Angelina Weld Grimke and Charlotte Forten—created a vast network of friends, kin, and lovers as they reimagined Blackness and womanhood in terms far more radical than their white relatives would have allowed. A stunning counternarrative, The Grimkes shows that, just as the Hemingses and Jeffersons personified the racial myths of America’s founding generation, the Grimkes embodied the legacy—both traumatic and generative—of those myths.

©2022 Kerri K. Greenidge (P)2022 Spotify Audiobooks

Powerful Truths about the African American condition.

This story is a must read for all descendants of slavery. The American system of slavery, Jim Crowe and systemic racism that is still a thriving culture in America perpetuates race bias even today. Knowing history can inform you and prepare you to participate in the making of a better future. I’m telling five people to read this book and will challenge them to do the same.

An American Family

This story straddling generations is one I’ve not encountered before. This is less a tale of Black and white than of those real, lived spaces — people and their conditions — in between. A fascinating family tree, I wish I’d had it before my eyes as so many characters share first and last names. I longed to see the branches visually. I suspect it’s in the paper edition. The narrator’s voice was full of the spirit of the book. I highly recommend it!

Interesting History -Not for the those with attention deficits.

I found the book interesting and engaging, and the narrator was great, but the problem with this type of historical work was that many of the people had the same or similar names, and sometimes they married into each other's families. In addition, the author had to set the stage, so there is a lot of moving back and forth in time. I stayed lost for a good while as she introduced the story and the characters. I just focused on what was happening instead of who it was happening too. It eventually came together. I felt this was an honest history, and a very thoroughly researched telling of the history.

Before you read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd read The Grimkes first.

I have wanted to read The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd for years. Before I pick it up I wanted to read a non fiction account on the Grimke sisters first. The Grimkes:The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family by Kerri K. Greenidge is the current biography. I was not disappointed. The book is about the entire family and the effect of slavery on its members.

Thinking differently

Being Black. Making choices. Thinking deeply about progress and pathways. If you read this as a Black person, be ready and committed to think deeply-beyond your typical process of digesting the historical past and what it means in 2022 and beyond.

Unduly Long and Repetitive

This story could have been much more enjoyable with less detail and thorough editing for repeated information. A shame since this is important one.

Perhaps better on the written page?

I had trouble keeping up with the story, mostly because there were so many people and so much background, though I was confused with the jumping timelines (especially in Nana’s story - at one point I thought I had skipped 8-10 years ahead only to hear some of those years in a future chapter). Perhaps that method of disjointed writing makes more sense when read, but I would have enjoyed hearing a more linear timeline for such a complex tale.