List of African-American U.S. state firsts

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African Americans are a demographic minority in the United States. African-Americans' initial achievements in various fields historically establish a foothold, providing a precedent for more widespread cultural change. The shorthand phrase for this is "breaking the color barrier."^[1][2]

In addition to major, national- and international-level firsts, African-Americans have achieved firsts on a statewide basis.

19th century

• 1868

First elected African-American lieutenant governor: Oscar Dunn, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana

• 1870

May: First African-American acting governor: Oscar James Dunn of Louisiana from May till August 9, 1871, when sitting Governor Warmoth was incapacitated and chose to recuperate in Mississippi. (See also: Douglas Wilder, 1990)

• 1871

First African-American police officer in Chicago, Illinois: James L. Shelton.^[3]

• 1872

First African-American governor of Louisiana: P. B. S. Pinchback (Also first in U.S.) (Non-elected; see also Douglas Wilder, 1990)

• 1880

First African American elected to the Indiana general assembly: James Sidney Hinton.^[4][5]

• 1889
• First African-American female principal in Massachusetts and the Northeast: Maria Louise Baldwin, supervising white faculty and a predominantly white student body at the Agassiz Grammar School in Cambridge.

20th century

• 1918

First African American elected to political office on the West Coast: Frederick Madison Roberts, California State Assembly

• 1930

First African Americans elected as judges in the state of New York: James S. Watson and Charles E. Toney

• 1962

First African-American attorney general of Massachusetts: Edward Brooke. Also first African American to hold Massachusetts statewide office, and first African-American attorney general of any state.

• 1966

First African American woman Texas state senator: Barbara Jordan

First African American appointed to New York State Board of Regents: Kenneth Bancroft Clark

First African American senator from Massachusetts: Edward Brooke. (Also first post-Reconstruction African American elected to the U.S. Senate and first African American elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote).

• 1967

First African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar: Marian Wright Edelman

• 1969

First African American elected mayor of a Mississippi city since Reconstruction: Charles Evers, in Fayette, Mississippi^[6]

• 1977
• First African American to serve on the California Supreme Court: Wiley W. Manuel
• 1979

First African American elected to a statewide office in Illinois: Roland Burris, office of Comptroller

First African American elected to a statewide office in Wisconsin: Vel Phillips, office of Secretary of State

• 1980

First African-American speaker of the California State Assembly: Willie Lewis Brown, Jr.

• 1984

First African American elected to a statewide office in Georgia: Robert Benham, Supreme Court of Georgia

• 1990

First African-American governor of Virginia: Douglas Wilder (Also first elected governor in US; see also P. B. S. Pinchback, 1872)

• 1992

First African-American elected to a statewide office in Indiana: Pamela Carter, office of Attorney General

First African-American Minnesota Supreme Court justice: Alan Page

• 1993

First African American senator from Illinois: Carol Moseley Braun. (Also first and only African-American woman elected to the United States Senate, the first African-American U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party, the first woman to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator in an election, and the first and only female Senator from Illinois).

• 1998

First African-American woman elected State Treasurer and first African-American woman elected statewide in Connecticut: Denise Nappier^[7]

First African American elected to office of Attorney General Georgia: Thurbert E. Baker,

21st century

• 2002

First African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland and first elected to statewide office in Maryland: Michael Steele (See also: 2009)

• 2004

First African-American Oklahoma Supreme Court justice: Tom Colbert

First African-American Wisconsin Supreme Court justice: Louis B. Butler

First African-American Auditor of Accounts of Vermont and first elected to statewide office in Vermont: Randy Brock

• 2006

First African American elected governor of Massachusetts: Deval Patrick

First African-American lieutenant governor of New York: David Paterson

• 2008

First African-American woman elected Speaker of the California State Assembly: Karen Bass

First African-American governor of New York State: David Paterson (elected as lieutenant governor, succeeded on resignation of previous governor)

• 2009

First bicameral state legislature to have both chambers headed simultaneously by African Americans: Peter Groff and Terrance Carroll of Colorado.

• 2010

First African-American attorney general of California: Kamala Harris

First African-American Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Roderick L. Ireland

• 2013

First African-American senator from South Carolina: Tim Scott^[8] (Also the first African-American to serve both houses of the U.S. Congress.)

• 2012

First African-American to be elected and serve as Worshipful Master of an Ancient, Free, and Accepted Masonic Lodge in the United States: Gerald F. Poe Jr. He was installed on January 1, 2012 as Worshipful Master of Patuxent Lodge No. 218 of Maryland, under the Authority of the Grand Lodge of Maryland.

• 2014

First African-American senator elected from the South since Reconstruction: Tim Scott ^[9]

• 2015

First African American elected Speaker of the New York State Assembly: Carl Heastie^[10]

First African-American Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky and first elected to statewide office in Kentucky: Jenean Hampton ^[11][12]

See also

• List of first African American mayors

Footnotes