Ambassador Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett Memorial at CCSU

Ambassador Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett was the first African American student to attend and graduate from the New Britain Normal School, the parent institution of Central Connecticut State University. Mr. Bassett was an educator, abolitionist, humanitarian, and he became United States first African American Diplomat.

Ebenezer Don Carlos Bassett was born in 1833 in Litchfield, Connecticut. His
father and grandfather were both elected as Black Governors, positions of honor in
the African American community. He grew up in Derby, CT, where he received his
early education, then enrolled as the first African American student at the New
Britain Normal School, presently known as Central Connecticut State University,
graduating in 1853.

Mr. Bassett taught school in New Haven, where he formed an enduring
friendship with Mr. Frederick Douglass as they both spoke out for Emancipation and
Civil Rights. Later, Mr. Bassett was the Principal of Philadelphia’s Institute for
Colored Youth (ICY), which became Cheyney University, the nation’s first Historically
Black College. In 1869, he was appointed as Diplomatic Minister (ambassador), the
first African American to hold this post in the U.S. State Department and served in
Haiti for almost nine years. In 1877, he returned to the United States, but went back
to Haiti to assist his lifelong friend Mr. Douglass during Douglass’s tenure as
Diplomatic Minister.

Mr. Bassett died in 1908 in Brooklyn, NY, and is buried with his wife and
children in the Grove Street Cemetery in New Haven, CT.