Ebenezer Bassett: CT Hero and America's First Black Ambassador

Ebenezer Bassett was a man ahead of his time. In the mid-19th century, when most African Americans led difficult lives, Bassett was educated in Derby schools, attended college, and became a teacher, an activist, and an abolitionist. In 1869, President Ulysses Grant named him Minister Resident (Ambassador) to Haiti. Bassett served in that Caribbean nation through eight years of bloody civil war, earning praise for his compassionate assistance to war refugees. In this Black History Month program, which received a Connecticut League of History Organizations Award of Merit, independent historian Carolyn Ivanoff will discuss the life of this Connecticut hero.

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Category: Attractions | Talks and Lectures