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“Distinguished Colored Men,” Published by A. Muller & Co., New York, 1883.
Credit: Library of Congress
In 1883, A. Muller & Co. of New York published this lithograph of the United State’s most prominent African American leaders, including Mississippi Senator Blanche K. Bruce, Louisiana Governor P. B. S. Pinchback, and Virginia Congressman John Mercer Langston, who form an oval around revered abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass. Philadelphia school principal Ebenezer D. Bassett, the nation’s first black diplomat, is pictured directly below Douglass.