Black Firsts in Government

Term: February 25, 1870 - March 4, 1871

Hiram Revels, born free in North Carolina during slavery, was a minister prior to entering politics. When the Civil War erupted, he helped the Union cause by forming the first black regiment from Missouri and aided in the creation churches and schools in the South. After the war, he served as a Mississippi state senator. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed to an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate. He was sworn in on February 25, 1870, and his term expired on March 4, 1871. Revels was the first African American U.S. senator.

Term: December 12, 1870 - March 3, 1879

Joseph Rainey, born into slavery and freed in the 1840s, worked as a barber until the end of the Civil War. Rainey helped construct South Carolina’s new constitution during the state’s 1868 convention; in 1870 he was elected to the state Senate. On December 12, 1870, after winning a vacant unexpired term, Rainey was sworn into the U.S. House of Representatives. He was the first black to serve in this position. He served four consecutive terms. He lost his bid for reelection in 1878. His term ended on March 3, 1879.

Term: December 9, 1872 - January 13, 1873

Pinckney B.S. Pinchback was born into freedom in Macon, Georgia in 1837. His mother, a former slave, and his father, a white Mississippi planter, had ten children together. Upon his father’s death, the family moved to Ohio. When the Civil War began, Pinchback organized black volunteers into the Corps d’Afrique. After the war, he served as a delegate at Louisiana’s constitutional convention. In 1868, he was elected to the state Senate and served as the president pro tempore. This position led to his appointment as lieutenant governor after his predecessor died in 1871. When Governor Henry Clay Warmoth was impeached, Pinchback served as acting governor from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873.

Term: 1967 - 1971

The son of a laundryman and a cleaning woman, Carl Stokes rose to power in Cleveland, Ohio after serving as a prosecutor and in the state’s House of Representatives. Despite racial tension in the city, Stokes was elected mayor of Cleveland in 1967. He became the city’s and the nation’s first black mayor of a major city. Stokes served for two terms. He later served as a municipal judge and was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Seychelles by President Clinton in 1994.

Term: 1969 - 1983

Shirley Chisholm was born in New York, but lived in Barbados with her grandmother for several years during her childhood. After graduating from college in New York, she began a career in education but moved into politics after organizing the Unity Democratic Club. She won a New York Assembly seat in 1964, and four years later she won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. She served for seven terms. In 1972, she ran for the Democratic nominee for president, becoming the first woman and the first African American to do so.

Term: January 14, 1990 - January 15, 1994

L. Douglas Wilder was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1931. He earned a chemistry degree from Virginia Union University and a law degree from Howard University School of Law in 1959. He was elected to the Virginia state Senate in 1969. He was the first African American elected to Virginia’s legislature since Reconstruction. After sixteen years in the state’s legislature, he was elected lieutenant governor in 1985. Four years later, he was elected governor. He served from 1990 to 1994. Wilder was elected mayor of Richmond, Virginia in 2004.

Term: 1993 - 1999

Carol Moseley Braun was born in Chicago. After earning a law degree 1972, she worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago until her son was born. After settling into motherhood, volunteer work in the community led to encouragement from friends to enter local politics. Moseley Braun won a seat in the Illinois House of Representatives in 1978. In 1992, she was elected to the U.S. Senate. She became the first female African American senator and the first female African American senator from Illinois. She served one term.

Term: January 20, 2001 - January 26, 2005

Colin Powell, the son of immigrant parents from Jamaica, was born in New York City in 1937. Powell began his career in the military through the ROTC program at City College of New York. Powell’s military career included serving as a military advisor in Vietnam, a senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense, Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, and he was appointed as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during Operation Desert Storm of the Persian Gulf War. In 2001, Powell began his service as the Secretary of State under President George W. Bush. He resigned in November 2004.

Term: January 26, 2005 - January 20, 2009

Condoleezza Rice was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1954. After earning a master’s degree and a Ph.D., Rice became a political science professor at Stanford University and was a Hoover Institute Fellow. Rice’s public service began under President George H.W. Bush: she was the Director and later the Senior Director of Soviet and East European Affairs in the National Security Council. In 2001, Rice served as President George W. Bush’s National Security Advisor. After Colin Powell resigned as Secretary of State in November 2004, Rice was appointed his successor.

January 20, 2009 -

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to a white mother and a Kenyan father. After Obama’s parents divorced and his mother remarried, he lived in Indonesia for a short time before returning to Hawaii to live with his grandparents. Obama graduated from Columbia University with a degree in political science. Prior to attending Harvard Law School, Obama worked as a community organizer in Chicago, Illinois. In 1996, Obama won an Illinois state Senate seat, and in 2004 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Obama is the fifth African American elected to the Senate. On August 27, 2008, Obama was officially named the Democratic nominee for president. On November 4, 2008, Obama won the presidency of the United States.