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We tried a straightforward search on "first african american postage stamp" and weren't disappointed with the results. At the web site of UPN 54, a television station out of New Orleans, we read that educator and leader Booker T. Washington was the first African American to grace the front of a stamp. However, the page did not specify what country issued the stamp. We would assume it was the United States, but you know the old saying about making assumptions, so we looked for more
information. We found it at the web site of the Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections (ESPER), which confirmed that the first African American depicted on a U.S. postage stamp was indeed Booker T. Washington. The 10-cent stamp was issued on April 7, 1940, as part of the Famous Americans series. A former slave, Washington went on to become the founder and first president of Tuskegee University. Washington stressed the importance of vocational education over social equality, a stance that led many civil-rights leaders to label him an "Uncle Tom." His views were eloquently expressed in
his famous "Atlanta Compromise" speech in which he said of racial relations, "In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress." We also learned that abolitionist Harriet Tubman was the first female African American depicted on a U.S. postage stamp. The stamp bearing her resemblance was issued February 1, 1978, and was the first of the Black Heritage Commemorative Stamp series issued by the United States Postal Service. The
series honors "outstanding African-American activists, theorists, educators and leaders." Just last month, a new stamp honoring Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall was issued, the 26th stamp in the series. Other stamps in the series have honored such notable people as Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson, Scott Joplin, Sojourner Truth, and Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz). Despite recent rumors, the USPS has no plans to discontinue this series, which has become one of its most popular.
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