This week, 238 years ago, Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, setting the 13 colonies on the road to freedom as a sovereign nation. In the spirit of Independence Day, the Fourth of July is the perfect time to pay homage once again to America’s Founding Fathers on this most American of holidays. But if there was a Mount Rushmore for African Americans who would you pick to immortalize on a mountain as a monument that African Americans for generations to come can look up to?
BlackEnterprise.com selected four from a list of more than 20 African Americans that we believe should have their faces sculpted and chiseled into our hypothetical mountain of eternal and unparalleled achievement. However, our choices are open to debate. Feel free to send us your top picks if you disagree with ours. Here are our four:
Frederick Douglass Called the father of the civil rights movement and the leading African American voice of the nineteenth century, Douglass’ brilliance and intelligence was a beacon blazing with the light and luminescence of the black spirit.
He channeled his drive and determination into the fight for the progress of black people. He has been recognized as an abolitionist, human and women’s rights activist, orator, journalist, publisher and social reformer. He served as an adviser to presidents, including Abraham Lincoln who considered him the “most meritorious man of the nineteenth century.” President James Garfield appointed him District of Columbia recorder of deeds. President Benjamin Harrison appointed him U.S. Minister to Haiti and President Grant appointed him the secretary of the commission of Santa Domingo.