Common apparel

It's been suggested by some that Common's portrayal of recently emancipated slave and current walking boss for the railroad cut crew Elam "They Call Me Mr. Ferguson" Ferguson on AMC's "Hell on Wheels" may be somewhat historically inaccurate.  That, perhaps, freedmen of the period did not wear their hair bald and their beards unkempt.  The reviewer for The Onion's A.V. Club even goes so far as to refer to the character as "Common," despite house style dictating that he should use the character's name. 

Well, I, for one, call fie on these naysayers.  The truth of the matter is that many contemporary records indicate that the style portrayed by Common was very, well, common amongst freedmen of the time.  For evidence, let me present the following daguerreotypes, recently unearthed from Matthew Brady's personal archive:

And thus: