Bishop Daniel Payne / Back "E. Lewis"

Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was an American sculptor. She was the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and father, a freeman of African descent. Lewis is recognized today as the first African-American sculptor and woman to receive international recognition. She was active in Boston where she was involved in the anti-abolition movement and later became one of the leading 19th-century American women sculptors in Rome.

Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893) was an American bishop, scholar and philanthropist. Daniel Payne was born to free Black parents in South Carolina in 1811. Payne was the first African American ordained in the Lutheran Church in Fordsboro, New York where he delivered "Slavery Brutalizes Man" speech. In 1853, he became a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church. He was the first Black American president of a college, Wilberforce University in 1856 and the first Black man to lead the Methodist Ecumenical Conference. (NYPL website, accessed December 14, 2022. https://www.nypl.org/events/tours/audio-guides/visualizing-black-agency-cartes-de-visite-audio-guide/item/3485)