BLACK MAN IN "A SOCIAL HISTORY OF MISSOURI"

I would venture that the black man leaning against the post, observing a procession of white politicians, in Thomas Hart Benton's "A Social History of Missouri," is more probably the martyred Homer G. Phillips, Esq. Homer Phillips' name is more famous than Jordan Chambers' name, gracing the black hospital that he adroitly got funded by means of a 1922 municipal bond issue; the subject of bitter political battles that he finally won, before being gunned down, in 1931, while leaning against a bus stop, reading a newspaper, in a strikingly similar pose to that depicted in the painting. https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/ozarks/now/2018/04/09/mystery-solved-black-man-missouri-capitol-mural-may-thomas-hart-benton-mural-missouri-capitol-identi/498819002/?fbclid=IwAR2yCv8l-18OVvnGxANKL2kUoZPqy4HQDNfPSTYdd6Oq3AhDgCVWP3YkXA8