Sometime in 2009, “clean out crew” contractor Rufus McDonald found, in the attic of an abandoned house on Chicago’s South Side scheduled for demolition, a cache of documents that belonged to Harvard University’s first black graduate, Richard T. Greener. The papers, originally in a “steamer trunk” that didn’t survive the demolition, included his “1870 Harvard diploma — water-damaged but intact — his law license, photos and papers connected to his diplomatic role in Russia and his friendship with President Ulysses S. Grant.” The cache also included a book, Autographs for Freedom (1853).[1] As knowledge of the discovery spread from Chicago Read more