By Hannah Faberman, B.A. ‘26, Classical & Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Archaeology
Abolitionists risked their lives to help enslaved people escape to freedom, but their individual stories are sometimes lost to history. However this is not true for Leonard Grimes, whose abolitionist activities in the D.C. area have been resurfaced by George Washington University alumni and student researchers.
On June 3, 2024, recent GW graduate Eileen Cunha examined Grimes’s life during a D.C. Mondays program organized by the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies. Cunha researched Grimes’ mid-Atlantic abolitionist activities for her senior thesis, and now works in strategic communications and public affairs at a D.C.-based consulting firm. Her presentation emphasized how interpersonal relationships and community connections were vital for developing networks to end slavery.
Antislavery networks in D.C. formed a nexus at the crossroads between free and slave states, with some extending outward to create an interconnected route of safe houses that guided enslaved people from southern plantations to northern freedom. Every participant was essential to the Underground Railroad’s success, and Grimes played an especially important role by helping enslaved people escape their enslavers and begin their journey to freedom.
Best known as the pastor of Boston’s Fugitive Slaves’ Church, Grimes started out working different jobs under wealthy White employers in the District. He eventually became a hackney coach driver, one of the few opportunities for independent employment afforded to free Black men. The job required Grimes to ride through the streets at all hours. As the city’s population grew accustomed to him being out-and-about, driving a hackney coach provided useful cover for his underground railroad activities. Through his customers, he also seized opportunities to build personal relationships with D.C.’s White and Black communities alike, developing a trustworthy and likeable reputation.
On March 2, 1840, Grimes was arrested for aiding an escaping enslaved woman and her six children. Although he was convicted and sentenced to two years in Richmond State Prison, Grimes’s trial highlighted his web of connections in and around the nation’s capital. Several White men, including enslavers and a police magistrate, testified on Grimes’s behalf, stressing his respectable character. The trust the local population placed in him, as evidenced during his criminal trial, underscored the importance of cultivating strong relationships in Grimes’s work as an abolitionist. Building relationships and connections were key to the Underground Railroad’s success.
By sharing Grimes’s story, Cunha highlights the extensive coordination required to sustain the Underground Railroad both locally and nationally. Her research, and that of others studying Grimes’s time in Washington, also introduces GW students to another chapter of campus history: Grimes and his family lived in Foggy Bottom. You can watch a video of this D.C. Mondays program below and browse upcoming talks on the museum website.
About the Author
Hannah Faberman is an undergraduate at GW majoring in Classical & Ancient Near Eastern Studies and archaeology. She is a member of the GW Wind Ensemble and Delta Iota Gamma, the first pre-professional fraternity in the country dedicated to the study of anthropology and classics.
Header image: G.H. Loomis, “Reverend Leonard Grimes” (detail), [1860s]. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.