Headline and text of a news item published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on June 3, 1895, describing Houston Osborne's near-lynching.

Photograph identified as Phil Rice but likely of Houston Osborne, taken c.1895. Phil Rice and Houston Osborne were both clients of Fredrick McGhee; however, Phil Rice was white, so he is unlikely to be the man in this photograph. A photograph identified as Osborne from the same collection resembles a courtroom sketch of Rice, so it is possible the attributions were switched.
Image reproduced with permission of Minnesota State Archives.

Booker T. Washington, c.1906. Washington was a highly influential, and often divisive, figure in the early twentieth century civil rights movement. He is famous for the "Atlanta Compromise," which endorsed separation of whites and blacks.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett, undated. Wells-Barnett was born a slave in Mississippi. She made her fame as a journalist in Memphis, where she began a long career of reporting on lynchings in the South and elsewhere.

W.E.B Du Bois, undated. Du Bois was a prominent scholar and activist who publicly opposed Booker T. Washington and his promotion of limited rights for people of color.

William Monroe Trotter, 1922. Trotter was an early and energetic opponent of Booker T.Washington's and a persistent voice of protest who had trouble making and keeping alliances. He participated in the founding of the Niagara Movement and the NAACP.

T. Thomas Fortune, 1902. Fortune, a former slave, became a well-respected newspaperman and author. Among the reporters he employed was Ida B. Wells-Barnett.

Photograph (1886) of the original House of Hope Presbyterian Church at Fifth and Exchange Streets in downtown St. Paul. The church later moved to 797 Summit Avenue, where it operates today. This is where the musical performances and some of the speeches of the 1902 meeting were held.

National Afro-American Council meeting, St. Paul, 1902. Booker T. Washington stands in the front row, hat in hand; McGhee stands two rows behind him. To Washington's left, Bishop Alexander Walters, then Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Over Walters's right shoulder, T. Thomas Fortune; over his left. W. E. B. Du Bois. Emmett Scott is behind Wells-Barnett.