Uncompromising Activist: Richard Greener, First Black Graduate of Harvard College

He was the first African-American to graduate from Harvard, and at the height of the Civil War. After graduation, he struggled against discrimination to find his calling and to find steady employment. He worked tirelessly as an advocate of civil rights and eventually found a job as the first U.S. counsel to Vladivostok, and on top of that, he was the first African-American to hold such a role in a foreign country. This is the life of Richard Greener. Mr. Greener has largely been forgotten in the fog of history, especially as relates to the events and people of Reconstruction and Post-Reconstruction America. Professor Chaddock is hoping with this biography to help get Mr. Greener known again. And it works as a fairly run-of-the-mill biography. It is nice to find such details about someone who is not as famous as other people since I am sure sources are lacking. But Mrs. Chaddock does a fine job in the short space she has to examine Mr. Greener’s life, accomplishments, and disappointments, something that he had to always struggle with. For bringing back to life a voice that has been lost and forgotten, this book does a good job.