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African-American Firsts: Government

By kadesha05

  • State Elected Official

    State Elected Official
    Alexander Lucius Twilight, 1836, the Vermont legislature.

  • Local Elected Official

    Local Elected Official
    John Mercer Langston, 1855, town clerk of Brownhelm Township, Ohio.

  • U.S. Senator

    U.S. Senator
    Hiram Revels became Senator from Mississippi from Feb. 25, 1870, to March 4, 1871, during Reconstruction. Edward Brooke became the first African-American Senator since Reconstruction, 1966–1979. Carol Mosely Braun became the first black woman Senator serving from 1992–1998 for the state of Illinois. (There have only been a total of five black senators in U.S. history: the remaining two are Blanche K. Bruce [1875–1881] and Barack Obama (2005–2008).

  • U.S. Representative

    U.S. Representative
    Joseph Rainey became a Congressman from South Carolina in 1870 and was reelected four more times. The first black female U.S. Representative was Shirley Chisholm, Congresswoman from New York, 1969–1983.

  • Governor (appointed)

    Governor (appointed)
    P.B.S. Pinchback served as governor of Louisiana from Dec. 9, 1872–Jan. 13, 1873, during impeachment proceedings against the elected governor.

  • U.S. Cabinet Member

    U.S. Cabinet Member
    Robert C. Weaver, 1966–1968, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Lyndon Johnson; the first black female cabinet minister was Patricia Harris, 1977, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Jimmy Carter.

  • Mayor of Major City

    Mayor of Major City
    Carl Stokes, Cleveland, Ohio, 1967–1971. The first black woman to serve as a mayor of a major U.S. city was Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly, Washington, DC, 1991–1995.

  • Governor (elected)

    Governor (elected)
    L. Douglas Wilder, Virginia, 1990–1994. The only other elected black governor has been Deval Patrick, Massachusetts, 2007–

  • U.S. Secretary of State:

    U.S. Secretary of State:
    Gen. Colin Powell, 2001–2004. The first black female Secretary of State was Condoleezza Rice, 2005–2009.

  • U.S. President

    U.S. President
    Sen. Barack Obama. Obama defeated Sen. John McCain in the general election on November 4, 2008, and was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States on January 20, 2009.

  • Major Party Nominee for President

    Major Party Nominee for President
    Sen. Barack Obama, 2008. The Democratic Party selected him as its presidential nominee