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The first African American to become party leader in either chamber of congress was Hakeem Jeffries in 2023. One member, then Senator Barack Obama, went from the Senate to President of the United States in 2009. The first African Americans to serve in the Congress were Republicans elected during the Reconstruction Era.
Four of the five office holders served in a New England state. Three officeholders served as state legislators. Wentworth Cheswell first served in an elective office in 1776 as a local school board member in Newmarket, New Hampshire, and later as a justice of the peace (making him the first African American to serve as a judge). He would serve ...
Joseph Hayne Rainey (June 21, 1832 – August 1, 1887) was an American politician. He was the first black person to serve in the United States House of Representatives and the second black person (after Hiram Revels) to serve in the United States Congress. His service included time as presiding officer of the House of Representatives.
Born free in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.
The first African-American woman to serve as a representative was Shirley Chisholm from New York's 12th congressional district in 1969 during the Civil Rights Movement. Many African-American members of the House of Representatives serve majority-minority districts. [4]
Josiah Thomas Walls (December 30, 1842 – May 15, 1905) was a farmer, lawyer and politician who served all or some of three terms in the United States House of Representatives between 1871 and 1876. He was one of the first African Americans in the United States Congress elected during the Reconstruction Era , and the first black person to be ...
At the age of 26 in 1872, Lynch was elected as the youngest member of the US Congress from Mississippi's 6th congressional district, as part of the first generation of African-American Congressmen. (This district was created by the state legislature in 1870.) He was the only African American elected from Mississippi for a century.
Oscar Stanton De Priest (March 9, 1871 – May 12, 1951) was an American politician and civil rights advocate from Chicago. A member of the Illinois Republican Party, he served as a U.S. Representative from Illinois's 1st congressional district from 1929 to 1935. He was the first African American to be elected to Congress in the 20th century ...