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.