Henry Highland Garnet Appointed U.S. Minister to Liberia

President Garfield appoints abolitionist orator Henry Highland Garnet as U.S. Minister to Liberia — the highest diplomatic post held by an African American to that date. Garnet, who had delivered the first address by a Black man to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1865, died in Monrovia two months after arriving, but his appointment marked Black political recognition at the highest levels.