Christening of Booker T. Washington liberty ship, Sept. 29, 1942, California Shipbuilding Corporation's yards, Wilmington, California

Photograph of christening ceremony for the Booker T. Washington, the first liberty ship to be named for an African-American. Participants in the ceremony include Mary McLeod Bethune, the woman wearing glasses who is shaking hands with one of ship builders; singer Marian Anderson; and William J. Thompson, in top hat, Recorder of Deeds, Washington, D.C. Bethune established the National Council of Negro Women and was an advsior to Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Charlotta Bass, publisher of the California Eagle, later christened another liberty ship named for an African-American, the S.S. James Weldon Johnson.