The Original Black Elite

by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor,
The Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 31, 2017

Soon after Daniel Murray became chief of the periodical division of the Library of Congress, the Washington Times included a biographical sketch of him, along with a pen-and-ink likeness, in an article titled “Successful Colored Men.” The position, the article proclaimed, gave Murray “great prominence, and it is safe to say that he is known to almost every colored man of note in the country, and to most of the statesmen.”