Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising.

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Illustrated compendium of African American biographies, gathered by Rev. William J. Simmons (1849–1890). Simmons was born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina and later became a Baptist leader, president of State University of Louisville, Kentucky (later Simmons University), and race advocate. The text includes over 175 biographical entries.

“Simmons achieved lasting fame for his Men of Mark, published in 1887, showcasing the triumphs of black males, most of whom had surmounted the horrors of childhood enslavement with the clear intention of banishing the increasingly academically respectable notion of black innate inferiority and of promoting a thirst for education among black youth. Interestingly, Simmons planned a sequel outlining the achievements of prominent women, but his premature death interrupted those plans.” (ANB)

Speculatively, an 1887 ownership inscription on a preliminary leaf of one “Victor Chambers” may be that of Victor D. Chambers (1863–1943) who was born on the Gettysburg battlefield—just days after the battle—to a fugitive slave. “[Chambers] apparently grew up in Philadelphia, raised by both his mother and his maternal grandmother; he later moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he had both kin and friends, after their deaths. He worked for many years as a janitor in the Providence Public Schools, was married and divorced and had no children. He died in Providence in December of 1943.”¹

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