1. Frederick Douglass
This 1864 print is one of hundreds—Douglass was among the most photographed people of the 19th century. The speaker and abolitionist saw the power of photography. “It is evident that the great cheapness and universality of pictures must exert a powerful, though silent, influence upon the ideas and sentiment of present and future generations,” he said.

Photographs like this carte-de-visite (a print the size of a calling card) were sold at his speaking engagements. Douglass also included them with his letters.

2. Reverend Josiah Henson

By the time Josiah Henson sat for this photograph around 1876, he was in his 80s and famous across America. Henson inspired the main character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Stowe learned Henson’s story from his 1849 autobiography, which chronicled his enslavement in Maryland and escape to Canada. Despite Henson’s role in Stowe’s book, he received no compensation.

But Henson used his newfound celebrity to advocate for abolition in the United States. He published a new edition of his memoir and traveled the nation speaking to crowds about the horrors of his enslavement. Henson also crossed the Atlantic to the United Kingdom. There he spoke in more than 100 cities and met Queen Victoria.

3. Lucy Ann Stanton

Tucked in the bottom left corner of this college class picture is a portrait of Lucy Ann Stanton. Stanton is believed to be the first African American woman to earn a college degree—in 1850 from Ohio’s Oberlin College. Founded by abolitionists, Oberlin had admitted Black men since 1835. When Stanton attended, the college was segregated by gender, and she graduated from a ladies’ literary course.

In a powerful speech at Oberlin’s commencement, Stanton encouraged her classmates to fight for abolition. “Slavery is the combination of all crime. It is war,” she declared. Stanton would continue to fight for abolition. Her 1854 short story about slavery made Stanton another historic first: the first Black woman to publish a work of fiction in the United States. After emancipation, Stanton worked as a teacher for those who had formerly been enslaved.

4. John Mercer Langston

Another page from an Oberlin College class picture shows John Mercer Langston (he is at the far right of the middle row). He earned a bachelor’s degree in 1849 and master’s degree in 1852.

The first Black man to pass the bar in Ohio, Langston was also an abolitionist. He helped people fleeing enslavement on the Underground Railroad and led the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society with his brother Charles. He recruited African Americans to serve in the United States Colored Troops, including the Massachusetts 54th Regiment. In 1868, following emancipation, he became the first dean of Howard University’s law school.

Langston went on to help draft the Civil Rights Act of 1875. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1890, the first Black person to represent Virginia. His election was contested though, and he was only able to serve for six months.

5. James Walker Hood
James Walker Hood was a clergyman and bishop in the American Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (A.M.E. Zion). Hood advocated for abolition and equal rights for African Americans in his home of North Carolina. Following emancipation, he led and participated in several state and national conventions, pushing for the abolition of slavery and the right to vote for all men, regardless of race.

Hood was also a firm believer in the right to education for African Americans. He helped establish schools for Black students and played a key role in founding Zion Wesley Institute, now Livingstone College.

6. Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth was an antislavery activist and speaker. She gave popular lectures sharing her story as a “runaway slave.” Truth sold cartes-de-visite like this one at those talks (and by mail) to support herself. She printed the photographs with the quote “I sell the shadow to support the substance.” Truth even had the cards copyrighted to ensure that only she could profit from her “shadow” or likeness.

Truth also advocated for women’s rights. Her pose in this photograph, as she pauses from knitting, asserts the dignity something traditionally considered “women’s work.” She spoke at the first National Women’s Rights Convention and later delivered her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech.