there is joseph rainey again. it takes is all the way around to all of them who were there. i find this so poignant. when this was printed, no one knew how long would it be? did they think it was going to be a very long time? did they think it would just be a moment. you can see it seems terribly damaged and had a hard life. indeed, it has. someone pasted it probably on a wall. underneath that print is -- and on top is wallpaper. it was pasted on someone's wall in recognition of those things that happened. printed in d.c. we acquired it in thd.c. it may have never left the city. >> madam secretary, we proudly give 72-hour delegate votes to the next president of the united states. [cheers and applause] ♪ >> american history tv was live yesterday from the smithsonian national museum of american history for an all-day conference of african american history. the theme was "the future of the african american past." historians and other scholars talk about

there is joseph rainey again. it takes is all the way around to all of them who were there. i find this so poignant. when this was printed, no one knew how long would it be? did they think it was going to be a very long time? did they think it would just be a moment. it seems terribly damaged and had a hard life. indeed, it has. pasted it probably on a wall. -- andath that print is on top is wallpaper. it was pasted on someone's wall in recognition of those things that happened. printed in d.c. we were able to reacquire it. it may never have left to the nations capitol, unlike black representation at the time it was printed. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] >> congratulations to the class of 2016. today is your day of celebration and you have earned it. just what -- >> voices crying for peace and light. your choices will make the difference to you and to all of us. ondo not be afraid to take cases where a new job or

here is joseph rainey again. the first african-american in the house. it takes is all the way around to all of them who were there. i find this so poignant. when this was printed, no one knew how long would it be? did they think 20 years was going to be a long time? did they think it would just be a moment. you can see it seems terribly damaged and had a hard life. indeed, it has. it was at some point -- someone took this and pasted it probably on a wall. it is pasted on board. underneath the print is is wallpaper. it was perhaps pasted on someone's wall in recognition of those things that happened. it was printed in d.c. we acquired it in d.c.. it may never have left to the nations capitol, unlike black representation at the time it was printed. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] q&a,is sunday night on u.s. senate historian talks about various event in senate history and the worker office does. >

they include hirem revels who you were just talking about and joseph rainey right here. this is three other members of congress. two in the house and one in the senate. that is the complete african-american representation in the senate. up until well into the 20th century. and you an see they're being presented in this print which is taken from a book from a former speaker of the house, in the congress, very much in the same vain as every other member of congress and statesman of the day was. most of these are taken by early photographs. if you were to see the whole thing, you'd see they look like they're sitting in the same chair, in front of the same curtain background that matthew brady uses for every congressman. you can't swing a cat without finding a 19th century photograph of a member of congress from brady's studio sitting in these chairs. it's interesting to me to see that during this reconstruction period, there really is this sense that these people are members of congress. there's this sort of, you know, the civil war is the b.c. and a.d. of american history