Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton
Dr. Carolyn L. Robertson Payton, born May 13, 1925, in Norfolk, Virginia, was a trailblazer as the first African American and first woman to serve...
Category : Politics
Joseph Hayne Rainey
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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. ...
Crystal Bird Fauset
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Crystal Dreda Bird Fauset was a trailblazing civil rights activist, social worker, educator, and politician, renowned as the first African American woman elected to a...
Pierre Caliste Landry
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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...
Ralph Bunche
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Ralph Johnson Bunche (August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971) was an American political scientist, diplomat, and United Nations official who became the first African...
The Freedmen’s Bureau
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The Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was a groundbreaking federal agency established in the aftermath of the...
John Mercer Langston
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John Mercer Langston, the youngest of four children, was born a free black in Louisa County, Virginia in 1829. Langston gained distinction as an abolitionist,...
Matthias de Sousa
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Matthias de Sousa, an indentured servant, was the only black person to serve in the colonial Maryland legislature. As such he is the first African...
Carol Moseley Braun
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Carol Moseley Braun is a trailblazer in American politics. She made history in 1992 when she became the first African American woman elected to the...
Jefferson Franklin Long
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Jefferson Franklin Long was Georgia’s first African American congressman and the first black member to speak on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives....