1895
The year 1895 witnessed the rise of a new generation of African-American leaders as the old guard passed into history. That year, W.E.B. DuBois became the first black American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University and Booker T. Washington gave his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech. Neither man, however, could have reached such heights had it not been for the efforts of people like iconic escaped-slave-turned-abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who died that year.