Final answer:
The correct answer is option C) George W. Murray.
Step-by-step explanation:
The important black figure elected to Congress in 1896 was George W. Murray. None of the other options listed were elected to Congress in 1896. Booker T. Washington was indeed a significant black figure during that period, known for founding the Tuskegee Institute and promoting a philosophy of racial uplift through education and vocational training, which he famously outlined in his Atlanta Compromise speech.
Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and statesman, was a former slave who became a national leader of the abolitionist movement, but he was not the figure elected to Congress in 1896. Dr. Charles W. Macune is not known as a black figure in history; in fact, Dr. Macune was a white man who organized the Southern Farmers' Alliance but was not relevant to the question about black leadership in Congress.