These diaries recount the life of the scholar, reformer, teacher, and writer, Charlotte L. Forten Grimké (1837-1914). Born into an affluent and politically active black family, Charlotte Forten Grimké records in these diaries her privileged childhood years in Philadelphia and Salem, Massachusetts, her sporadic teaching career, her involvement with the antislavery movement, the eighteen months she spent teaching the contraband slaves of the South Carolina Sea Islands during the Civil War, and her later work as a poet and essayist. Her keen observations and meticulous accounts of the people and events that shaped her life provide a unique and personal view into the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.