Major African American Office Holders Since 1641
The election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama as President of the United States in 2008 has focused attention on the history of black office holding. The list below represents the most significant of the thousands of African American elected officials from 1641 until today. Most of the names below are linked to their profiles on BlackPast.
First Person of African Ancestry Elected to a Public Office in British North America:
Matthias de Souza, Colonial Maryland Legislature, 1641-1642
First Person of African Ancestry Elected to a Public Office in the United States:
Wentworth Cheswell, Constable of Newmarket, New Hampshire, 1768-1817
First African American Woman Elected to a State Legislature:
Crystal Bird Fauset, Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 1938-1940
First African American Woman Elected to a State Senate:
Cora Brown, Michigan State Senate, 1953-1956
President of the United States
Vice President of the United States
Presidential Cabinet Members (Department Secretaries Only)
The Lyndon Baines Johnson Administration, 1963-1969
The Gerald Ford Administration, 1974-1977
The Jimmy Carter Administration, 1977-1981
The Ronald Reagan Administration, 1981-1989
The George Herbert Walker Bush Administration, 1989-1993
The Bill Clinton Administration, 1993-2001
The George W. Bush Administration, 2001-2009
The Barack Obama Administration, 2009-2017
The Donald J. Trump Administration, 2017-2021
The Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Administration, 2021-
United States Senate
House of Representatives
Nineteenth Century
The 1860s and 1870s
The 1880s to the Turn of the Century
Twentieth Century
Turn of the Century to the Forties
The Fifties and Sixties
The Seventies
The Eighties
The Nineties
Twenty-First Century
The Twenty Aughts
The Teens
The Twenties
Non-Voting Congressional Delegates
Governors
Lt. Governors
Attorneys General
Secretaries of State
Big City Mayors – First Black Elected Mayors in Cities of 300,000 or More
**Sharon Pratt Dixon Kelly was the first female mayor of Washington, D.C.
***Shirley Clarke Franklin was the first African American woman to become mayor of a Southern U.S. city
****Sheila Ann Dixon was the first female mayor of Baltimore