Richard Howell Gleaves was a lawyer, merchant, and politician who served as the 55th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina from December 7, 1872 to December 14, 1876. He served under Governors Franklin J. Moses, Jr. and Daniel Henry Chamberlain. A Haitian-American of mixed ancestry, Gleaves was notable as one of the highest elected black Americans during the Reconstruction Era.

Martin Robison Delany was an American abolitionist, journalist, physician, military officer and writer who was arguably the first proponent of black nationalism. Delany is credited with the Pan-African slogan of "Africa for Africans." Born as a free person of color in Charles Town, Virginia, now West Virginia, and raised in Chambersburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Delany trained as a physician's assistant. During the cholera epidemics of 1833 and 1854 in Pittsburgh, Delany treated patients, even though many doctors and residents fled the city out of fear of contamination. In this period, people did not know how the disease was transmitted.