-
Matthias de Souza
Officeholder in colonial America: Matthias de Souza, 1641
Matthias de Souza, an indentured servant, was the only black person to serve in the colonial Maryland legislature. As such he is the first African American to sit in any legislative body in what would become the United States. -
Alexander Luciuc Twilight
First African American in the United States to graduate from college Middlebury College in 1823, after which he taught school in Peru, NY, where he studied for the Congregational ministry. Elected to the Vermont General Assembly in 1836, Twilight became the 1st African American to serve in a state legislature in the United States. -
John Mercer Langston
At fourteen Langston began his studies at the Preparatory Department at Oberlin College. Known for its radicalism and abolitionist politics, Oberlin was the first college in the United States to admit black and white students. Langston completed his studies in 1849, becoming the fifth African American male to graduate from Oberlin’s Collegiate Department. In 1855 Langston was elected town clerk of Brownhelm Township in Ohio, becoming the first black elected official in the state. -
Pierre Caliste Landry
Pierre Caliste Landry, a former slave turned educator and minister, is noted as the first African American to be elected mayor of a town in the Unites States. Landry was born into slavery on April 19, 1841 on a sugar cane plantation in Ascension Parish, Louisiana.Landry had become one of the town’s most prominent citizens and that year (1868), he was unanimously elected as Mayor of Donaldsonville, making him the first African American to be elected as mayor of a town in the US -
Walter Burton
Walter Moses Burton holds the distinction of being the first black elected sheriff in the United States. Burton was also a State Senator in Texas.
In 1869, Walter Burton was elected sheriff and tax collector of Fort Bend County. Along with these duties, he served as the president of the Fort Bend County Union League.
In January 1874, Burton was granted a certificate of election from the Thirteenth Senatorial District. -
Jonthan Jasper Wright
Jonathan Jasper Wright, the first African American to serve on a state Supreme Court.In 1866, with the backing of a new Federal civil rights law, the state’s first African American attorney. He soon became active in Republican politics and was chosen as a delegate to the South Carolina Constitutional Convention that met in Charleston in January 1868. Later that year he was elected to the South Carolina state senate representing Beaufort. -
Joseph Rainey
In 1870 Republican Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African American to be elected to the United States House of Representatives and take his seat. He served in the 41st Congress and was appointed to the Committee on Freedmen’s Affairs and the Committee on Indian Affairs. Rainey ran for reelection in 1872 without opposition. -
Hiram Revels
Hiram Rhoades Revels was the first African American United States Senator, filling the seat left vacant by Jefferson Davis in 1861 when Mississippi seceded from the Union. As a prominent, highly educated African American, Revels was encouraged by many to seek higher office. He ran for the Adams county seat in the state senate in late 1869 as a Republican and easily won as a result of the large majority of African Americans who had recently gained the right to vote during Reconstruction. -
P.B.S. Pinchback
Pinchback organized the Fourth Ward Republican Club, and was a member of the delegation that established a new constitution for the state of Louisiana in 1868.From December 9, 1872, to January 13, 1873 Pinchback served as acting governor of Louisiana, making him the first person of African descent to serve as governor of any state. efore ascending to the office of governor, Pinchback had run for both a U.S Senate seat and a seat in the U.S. Congress simultaneously in 1872. -
George Edward Taylor
Taylor and other independent-minded African Americans in 1904 jonied the first national political party created exclusively for and by blacks, the National Liberty Party (NLP). The Party met at its national convention in St. Louis, Missouri in 1904. He believed that an independent political party that could mobilize the African American vote was the only practical way that blacks could exercise political influence. -
Carl B. Stokes
Carl B. Stokes, lawyer, anchorman, U.S. diplomat and the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city.Carl Stokes's political career also began in 1962 when he was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives. Stokes served until 1965 when he resigned to concentrate on running for Mayor of Cleveland. In 1967, he defeated Seth Taft, the grandson of former president William Howard Taft, to become the first African American mayor of a major U.S. city. -
Carolyn L. Robertson Payton
Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton was the first African American and the first woman to become the director of the U.S. Peace Corps. She was appointed in 1977 by U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Payton is best known, however, for her career contribution as the director of the Howard University Counseling Service (HUCS) from 1970 to 1977, and later as dean of counseling and career development from 1979 until her retirement in 1995. -
Edward Brooke
Edward William Brooke III was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate. In his fourth try for elective office, Brooke won the Attorney General's race in 1962, becoming the first elected African American Attorney General of any state in American history. He won again in 1964. -
Edward William Brooke
Edward William Brooke III was the first African American to be elected by popular vote to the United States Senate. In 1966 Brooke ran for the US Senate, defeating former Governor Endicott Peabody. He served two terms in the Senate from January 3, 1967, to January 3, 1979. While in the Senate, Brooke co-authored the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Brooke also supported anti-poverty legislation and called for strengthening Social Security, increasing the minimum wage, and funding Medicare. -
Robert C. Weaver
Robert C. Weaver was a noted economist and administrator. From 1966 through 1968, he was the first African American cabinet official, serving as the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Weaver was born and raised in Washington D.C. From 1929 through 1934, he attended Harvard University, earning economic degrees at the Bachelor of Science, Masters’, and Ph.D. levels. -
Shirley Chisholm
Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, an advocate for the rights of people of color and for women's rights, became in November 1968 the first black woman elected to the United States Congress.She served two terms and in 1972 ran in the New York Democratic primary for president of the United States, establishing another first for black women. -
Patricia Harris
Patricia Roberts Harris received a law degree from George Washington University in 1960. She graduated number one in her class and was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. Harris worked briefly for the U.S. Department of Justice and was appointed co-chair of the National Women’s Committee for Civil Rights by President John F. Kennedy. In 1977 Harris was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to become the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in his cabinet -
Colin Powell
In 1987 at the age of 49, General Colin Powell was named National Security Advisor in the Ronald Reagan administration. While serving in this capacity Powell became the first African American promoted to Four-Star General. In 1989 newly elected President George H.W. Bush appointed Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Powell was both the youngest person, and once again first African American, to hold this position. -
L. Douglas Wilder
Douglas Wilder was the first African American to be elected governor in the United States of America. For four years Wilder served as the governor of Virginia (1990-1994) -
Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly
In 1972, Dixon was named a Professor of Law at the Antioch School of Law in Washington, D.C., a post she held for four years. In 1990, in her first bid for public office, Sharon Pratt Dixon was elected mayor of Washington, D.C. -
Carol Moseley Braun
She earned her degree from the University of Chicago Law School in 1972.Moseley Braun served as assistant prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago from 1972 to 1978. In the latter year she was elected to the Illinois House of Representatives and served in that body for ten years.Became the 1st female Senator elected from Illinois and the first African American woman in the U.S. Senate. During her term in the U.S. Senate (1992-1998) Moseley Braun focused on education issues. -
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice has earned distinction as a scholar, expert on international politics, and with her appointments as the first African American woman National Security Advisor and Secretary of State of the United States. When George W. Bush was elected President of the United States in 2001, he chose Rice as his National Security Advisor, making her the first woman and only the second African American (after Colin Powell) to hold the position. -
Barack Obama
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama began his first term as the President of the United States.On January 20, 2013, Barack Obama began his second term as President of the United States. - -
Elizabeth Lynch
On November 28, 2014, President Obama nominated Lynch for the position of United States Attorney General. She was confirmed by the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate and approved by the Senate by a vote of 56 to 43 on April 3, 2015, the first African American female Attorney General and the second woman to hold the office. -
Who is Next?
We need more African Americans to run for office.
