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]

Contents

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

19th century

First governor of African descent in what is now the US: Pío Pico, an Afro-Mexican, was the last governor of Alta California before it was ceded to the US. Like all Californios, Pico automatically became a US citizen in 1848. He was elected to the Los Angeles Common Council in 1853, but he did not assume office.[ citation needed ]
First elected African-American lieutenant governor: Oscar Dunn, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana
First 33 African-American legislators in Georgia: see Original 33
First African American admitted to the University of Michigan Law School: Gabriel Franklin Hargo [3]
First African-American woman to earn a medical degree in New York State: Susan McKinney Steward
First African-American senator from Mississippi: Hiram R. Revels (also first in U.S.)
First African American to graduate from the University of Michigan Law School: Gabriel Franklin Hargo [4]
First African-American acting governor: Oscar James Dunn of Louisiana from May until August 9, 1871, when sitting Governor Warmoth was incapacitated and chose to recuperate in Mississippi. (see also: Douglas Wilder, 1990)
Second African-American acting governor of Louisiana: P. B. S. Pinchback (Also second in U.S.) (non-elected; see also Douglas Wilder, 1990) (Also first elected senator but was denied seat) [5] [6]
First African-American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and of any state legislature: John R. Lynch
First African American elected to the Tennessee General Assembly: Sampson W. Keeble
First African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly: John W. E. Thomas
First African American elected mayor in New York State (village president of Cleveland): Ned Sherman
First African American elected to the Wyoming Legislature: William Jefferson Hardin
First African American elected to the Ohio General Assembly: George Washington Williams
First African American elected to the Indiana General Assembly: James Sidney Hinton [7] [8]
Founded the first school for black children in Augusta, Georgia and was principal for 50 years for the Haines Institute for Industrial and Normal Education: Lucy Craft Laney [9]
First African American woman to practice medicine in Ohio: Consuelo Clark-Stewart [10]
First African American elected to the Rhode Island General Assembly: Mahlon Van Horne
First African-American woman to graduate from the University of Michigan Medical School and the first faculty member of Spelman College where she established its nurse training program: Sophia B. Jones [11] [12]
First documented African-American woman to graduate from an Indiana college or university when she received a bachelor's degree from Butler University: Gertrude Amelia Mahorney [13]
First African-American woman to become a licensed doctor in the U.S. state of Massachusetts: Juan Bennett Drummond
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 (renamed the Maria L. Baldwin School in 2004). [14] [15]
First woman to be licensed as a physician in the U.S. state of Alabama: Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson [16]
First African-American member elected to the Michigan House of Representatives: William Webb Ferguson
First African-American woman to become a licensed surgeon and physician in Tennessee: Georgia E. L. Patton Washington
First African American and the first woman to pass the Virginia Medical Examining Board's examination:Sarah Garland Boyd Jones [17] [18]
First African-American woman licensed to practice law in Illinois, and the third in the United States: Ida Platt
First African-American woman licensed to practice medicine in the U.S. state of Georgia: Eliza Ann Grier [19]
First African-American woman licensed to practice medicine in South Carolina: Matilda Evans [20]
First African-American woman physician in Indianapolis: Beulah Wright Porter [21]
First African-American member elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives: John Francis Wheaton [22]
First woman to teach law in a chartered law school when she joined the faculty of her alma mater, Central Tennessee College of Law: Lutie Lytle [23]
First African-American woman to graduate from medical school and to practice medicine in Louisiana: Emma Wakefield-Paillet [24]

20th century

First African American columnist to regularly write for a white newspaper in Indiana: Lillian Thomas Fox [25]
First African-American elected to the Wisconsin Legislature: Lucian H. Palmer [26] [27]
Founded the first hospital in the city of Evanston, Illinois that would serve African-American patients: Isabella Garnett and her husband Dr. Arthur Butler [28]
First African American and first woman to graduate from the University of Hawaiʻi (master’s degree in chemistry): Alice Ball [29]
Possibly the first African American to graduate from Suffolk Law School: Thomas Vreeland Jones (Father of Lois Mailou Jones) [30]
First African-American woman to practice dentistry in Cambridge, Massachusetts: Edna C. Robinson Brown [31]
First African American to enter the University of Oregon: Mabel Byrd [32]
First African-American elected to political office in California: Frederick Madison Roberts, California State Assembly [33]
First African-American student at Hamline University in Minnesota: Anna Arnold Hedgeman
First African-American elected to the Missouri legislature: Walthall Moore [34] [35]
First African-American librarian hired by the New York Public Library (NYPL): Catherine Allen Latimer
First African-American woman to graduate from the Tufts University School of Dental Medicine, and the only woman in her graduating class: Jessie G. Garnett [36]
First African American to graduate from Hamline University in Minnesota: Anna Arnold Hedgeman
First African-American woman to work for the Louisville Metro Police Department: Bertha Whedbee
First African-American elected to the Illinois Senate: Adelbert Roberts
First African-American woman to graduate from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, now NYU Grossman School of Medicine: May Edward Chinn
First African-American woman to receive a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School: Sadie T. M. Alexander
First African-American woman legislator in the United States when she was appointed to the West Virginia House of Delegates: Minnie Buckingham Harper
First African Americans elected as judges in the state of New York: James S. Watson and Charles E. Toney [37]
First African-American woman to graduate from the University of Cincinnati Law School: Helen Elsie Austin
First woman president of Tillotson College (now Huston–Tillotson University), a HBCU in Austin, Texas and the first woman to head an accredited college in Texas: Mary Elizabeth Branch [38] [39]
First African-American woman licensed as a pharmacist in the state of Iowa: Gwendolyn Wilson Fowler
First African American to perform with the all-white Chicago Symphony Orchestra: Margaret Bonds
First African American and first woman appointed as an assistant attorney general in Ohio: Helen Elsie Austin [40]
First African-American woman to graduate from Grinnell College, in Grinnell, Iowa: Edith Renfrow Smith [41]
First African American hired as a policeman by the Baltimore Police Department: Violet Hill Whyte [42]
First African-American woman to be elected to the Pennsylvania General Assembly and to any state legislature: Crystal Bird Fauset
First African-American woman from the state of Florida to graduate from an accredited law school (Howard University Law School): Blanche Armwood
First African-American woman to own a cosmetology school in Iowa: Pauline Brown Humphrey [43]
Baltimore Police Department African-American officers were allowed to wear police uniforms. [44]
First African-American woman to graduate from the University of Michigan Law School and pass the bar exam: Jane Cleo Marshall Lucas [45]
First African-American librarian to work at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh: Vivian Davidson Hewitt [46] [47]
First African American to graduate from a nursing program in Colorado (University of Colorado School of Nursing): Zipporah Parks Hammond [48]
First African-American woman to pass the Maryland bar exam and be admitted to practice law in Maryland: Jane Cleo Marshall Lucas [49]
First African-American physician to work at the Newark City Hospital, Newark, New Jersey: Ernest Mae McCarroll [50]
First African-American woman to graduate in medicine from Ohio State University: Clotilde Dent Bowen
First African American elected to the Delaware House of Representatives: William J. Winchester
First African-American female attorney admitted to the Alabama State Bar: Mahala Ashley Dickerson
First African Americans hired by the Atlanta Police Department: Henry Hooks, Claude Dixon, Ernest H. Lyons, Robert McKibbens, Willard Strickland, Willie T. Elkins, Johnnie P. Jones, and John Sanders [51]
First African American admitted to the University of Oklahoma College of Law: Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher
First African American to be appointed president of the Commission of the Detroit Department of Public Welfare: Rosa Slade Gragg [52]
First African-American woman to be elected to the West Virginia Legislature: Elizabeth Simpson Drewry
First African-American woman to be elected to the Michigan Legislature: Charline White
First African-American woman to graduate from the University of Maryland School of Law and to practice law in the state of Maryland: Juanita Jackson Mitchell [53]
Second African-American woman admitted to the Indiana bar: Mahala Ashley Dickerson
First African American to graduate from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences: Edith Irby Jones [54]
First African-American woman elected (rather than appointed) to the Michigan state senate: Cora Brown
First African-American woman physician on the faculty of the University of Louisville School of Medicine: Grace Marilynn James
First African-American woman to hold a cabinet position in New York City: Anna Arnold Hedgeman
First African-American woman to become a licensed architect in the state of New York: Norma Merrick Sklarek
First African American to receive a law degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge: Ernest Nathan Morial
First African-American woman elected to the New York State Legislature: Bessie A. Buchanan
First African-American elected to the Maryland State Senate: Harry A. Cole
First woman and the first African-American member of the Common Council in Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Vel Phillips
First African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Delgado Museum (now the New Orleans Museum of Art): Clementine Hunter [55]
First African-American student to attend the University of Alabama: Autherine Lucy [56] Her expulsion from the institution later that year led to the university's President Oliver Carmichael's resignation. [57] [58]
First African American to teach at college or university level in California: Betty Smith Williams. [59] [60]
First African-American woman elected to the New Jersey Legislature: Madaline A. Williams
First African-American women elected to the Maryland General Assembly: Verda F. Welcome and Irma George Dixon
First African-American woman elected to the Illinois General Assembly: Floy Clements
First African American to graduate from the University of Maryland: Elaine J. Coates [61]
First African-American to graduate from the University of Kentucky: Doris Y. Wilkinson
First African-American woman to earn a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan: Willie Hobbs Moore [62]
First African American to graduate from the University of Maryland: Elaine J. Coates [63]
First African-American attorney in the state of Alaska: Mahala Ashley Dickerson
First African-American woman to serve as a judge in Pennsylvania: Juanita Kidd Stout
First African-American woman attorney to practice law in the state of Kentucky: Alberta Odell Jones
First African-American woman to earn a doctorate in any subject at the University of Texas at Austin (mathematics education): Lillian K. Bradley [64]
First African-American students to attend the University of Georgia: Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes [65]
First African-American woman to graduate from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Engineering: Elayne Arrington [66] [67]
First African-American woman to earn a Master of Science in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan: Willie Hobbs Moore [68]
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.
First African-American woman to become a licensed architect in the state of California: Norma Merrick Sklarek
First woman and first African American to hold the position of West Virginia's mental health commissioner: Mildred Mitchell-Bateman [69]
First African American elected to the Delaware Senate: Herman Holloway
First African-American woman elected to the Indiana Legislature: Daisy Riley Lloyd
First African-American woman elected to the New York State Senate: Constance Baker Motley
First African-American woman elected to public office in Colorado (Denver Public Schools Board of Education: Rachel B. Noel
First African American to graduate from the University of Alabama: Vivian Malone Jones
First African-American woman elected to the Texas Legislature: Barbara Jordan
First African American known lesbian state legislator: Barbara Jordan
First African-American woman elected to the Georgia General Assembly: Grace Towns Hamilton
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).
First African-American woman in the California Legislature: Yvonne Brathwaite Burke
First African-American woman elected to the Tennessee General Assembly: Dorothy Lavinia Brown
First African-American woman elected to the Arizona Legislature: Ethel Maynard
First African-American to serve on the Miami, Florida City Commission: M. Athalie Range
Baltimore Police Department (BPD) first allowed African-American officers to use squad cars. Previously, they were restricted to foot patrols [70]
First African-American woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar: Marian Wright Edelman
First African-American woman elected to the Montana Legislature: Geraldine W. Travis
First African-American woman elected to the Baltimore City Council: Victorine Q. Adams
First African American elected to the Louisiana State Legislature since Reconstruction: Ernest Nathan Morial
First African-American elected to the Florida Legislature since Reconstruction: Joe Lang Kershaw
First African-American elected mayor of a Mississippi city since Reconstruction: Charles Evers, in Fayette, Mississippi [71]
First African-American woman to become a full-time faculty member at the University of Kentucky when she joined the Department of Sociology: Doris Y. Wilkinson
First African-Americans elected to the Alaska Legislature: Willard L. Bowman and Joshua Wright
First African-American woman elected to the Delaware General Assembly: Henrietta R. Johnson
First African-American woman elected to the Florida Legislature: Gwen Cherry
First African American elected as Juvenile Court judge in Louisiana: Ernest Nathan Morial
First African American to graduate with a medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee: Levi Watkins [72]
First African-American woman elected to the Washington Legislature: Peggy Maxie
First African-American woman to be elected to and serve in the Louisiana House of Representatives: Dorothy Mae Taylor
First African American to become chief resident of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland: Levi Watkins [73]
First female judge in Milwaukee County and the first African-American judge in Wisconsin: Vel Phillips
First African American since Reconstruction and the first woman ever to head a state agency in Florida when appointed as Secretary of the Department of Community Affairs: M. Athalie Range [74]
First African-American woman to earn a degree from University of Pittsburgh School of Law: Martha Richards Conley [75] [76]
First African-American elected to the Wisconsin Senate: Monroe Swan
First African-American woman elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives: Arie Parks Taylor
First African-American woman elected to the Massachusetts General Court: Doris Bunte
First African-American woman elected to the Connecticut General Assembly: Margaret E. Morton
First African-American woman elected to the Michigan State Board of Education: Barbara Roberts Mason
First African-American man elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives: Henry Richardson
First African American elected to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal: Ernest Nathan Morial
First African-American woman elected to the South Carolina Legislature: Juanita Goggins
First African-American appointed as a judge in Federal District Court in Virginia: Robert H. Cooley III (1939–1998), appointed to the Eastern District [77]
First African-American mayor in New Mexico: Albert Johnson [78]
First African-American woman to be elected mayor in Mississippi: Unita Blackwell
First African-American to serve on the California Supreme Court: Wiley W. Manuel
First African-American speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives, and of any state legislature in the United States since Reconstruction: K. Leroy Irvis
First African-American woman elected to the Wisconsin Legislature: Marcia P. Coggs
First African-American woman elected to the Illinois Senate: Earlean Collins
First African American elected mayor of New Orleans: Ernest Nathan Morial
First African-American appointed to the office of Michigan State Treasurer: Loren E. Monroe [79]
First African-American woman elected to the Ohio Legislature: Helen Rankin
First African-American woman appointed as a judge in Maryland: Mabel Houze Hubbard
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
First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of California, Davis: Giovonnae Anderson [80]
First African-American speaker of the California State Assembly: Willie Lewis Brown Jr.
First African-American woman to be elected as a circuit court judge in Michigan: Lucile A. Watts
First African-American woman elected to the Arkansas General Assembly: Irma Hunter Brown
First African-American elected to the Utah Senate: Terry Lee Williams
First African-American woman from Indiana elected to the U.S. House of Representatives: Katie Hall [81]
First African American and first woman to complete a neurosurgery residency at Case Western University, Cleveland, Ohio: M. Deborrah Hyde [82] [83]
First African American to be elected president of the National Association of Women Lawyers: Mahala Ashley Dickerson
First African-American elected to a statewide office in Georgia: Robert Benham, Supreme Court of Georgia
First African-American woman to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly: Yvonne B. Miller
First African American to be sworn in as the New York City Police Commissioner: Benjamin Ward
First African-American woman to hold a Louisiana cabinet position (head of the state Department of Urban and Community Affairs): Dorothy Mae Taylor
First African-American woman to be elected to the Mississippi Legislature: Alyce Clarke
First African-American woman elected to the Oregon Legislature: Margaret Carter
First African-American woman appointed Administrator of the Boston Housing Authority: Doris Bunte [84]
First African-American women elected to the Oklahoma State Senate: Vicki Miles-LaGrange and Maxine Horner
First African-American woman elected as county commissioner in Payne County, Oklahoma: Bernice Mitchell
First African-American justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court: Robert D. Glass
First African-American elected to the Wyoming Legislature: Harriet Elizabeth Byrd
First African-American woman in the United States to serve on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania: Juanita Kidd Stout
First African-American woman to earn a PhD at the University of Michigan in chemical engineering: Rosemarie Wesson
First African-American woman to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering at Rice University, Houston, Texas: Sandra Johnson [85]
First African American elected student body president of Texas A&M University: Ashanti Johnson [86]
First African-American governor of Virginia: Douglas Wilder (also first elected governor in US; see also P. B. S. Pinchback, 1872)
First African-American woman elected to the Alaska Legislature: Bettye Davis
First African-American principal dancer for the Houston Ballet: Lauren Anderson [87]
First African-American woman elected to the Louisiana State Senate: Diana Bajoie
First woman to serve as a California horse racing steward: Cheryl White
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
First African-American woman elected to Congress: Barbara-Rose Collins
First African American since the Reconstruction era elected to represent Florida in the United States Congress: Carrie Meek
First African Americans to win election to the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina since 1898: Eva Clayton and Mel Watt
First African-American woman to receive a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Virginia: Marta Dark McNeese [88]
First African-American senator from Illinois: Carol Moseley Braun. (Also first 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 female Senator from Illinois).
First African-American woman elected to the Nevada Legislature: Bernice Mathews
First African-American woman elected to the Delaware Senate: Margaret Rose Henry
First African-American woman to serve as a Colorado state senator: Gloria Tanner
First African-American woman from Alabama to earn a Ph.D. degree in physics (Alabama A&M University): Shelia Nash-Stevenson [89]
First African-American woman elected to the Oregon Legislature: Avel Gordly
First African-American woman elected State Treasurer and first African-American woman elected statewide in Connecticut: Denise Nappier [90]
First African-American elected to office of Attorney General of Georgia: Thurbert E. Baker
First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Michigan: Beth A. Brown
First African American to serve as a mayor on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and to be elected to any countywide office in Worcester County, Maryland (Orphan’s Court Judge): Fannie Birckhead [91]
First African-American woman justice of the Supreme Court of Florida: Peggy Quince
First African American to earn a doctoral degree in oceanography from Texas A&M University: Ashanti Johnson [92]
First African-American woman to earn her Ph.D. in astronomy at University of Washington: Dara Norman [93]

21st century

Official portrait of Kamala Harris, 2011 Kamala Harris Official Attorney General Photo.jpg
Official portrait of Kamala Harris, 2011
First African-American woman elected to the Minnesota Legislature: Neva Walker
First African-American woman in the Missouri Air National Guard to be promoted to Brigadier general: Edith Mitchell [94]
First African-American lieutenant governor of Maryland and first elected to statewide office in Maryland: Michael Steele (see also: 2009)
First African-American woman to be crowned Miss Florida in the Miss America pageant's 81-year history: Ericka Dunlap
First African-American District Attorney in California: Kamala Harris (San Francisco) (see also: 2010, 2017)
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
First African-American congresswoman elected in Wisconsin's history: Gwen Moore
First African-American elected governor of Massachusetts: Deval Patrick
First African-American lieutenant governor of New York: David Paterson
First African-American woman to graduate with a PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland: Jami Valentine [95]
First African-American appointed State Treasurer of New Jersey: Michellene Davis
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)
First African-American women elected to the Nebraska Legislature: Tanya Cook and Brenda Council
First African-American woman to head any branch of Florida government when she assumed the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Florida: Peggy Quince
First African-American woman elected to the Kansas Senate: Oletha Faust-Goudeau
First bicameral state legislature to have both chambers headed simultaneously by African Americans: Peter Groff and Terrance Carroll of Colorado
First African-American woman elected to the Boston City Council: Ayanna Pressley
First African-American elected Attorney General of California: Kamala Harris (see also: 2004, 2017)
First African-American Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court: Roderick L. Ireland
First African-American elected to the Idaho Legislature: Cherie Buckner-Webb
First African-American woman elected to Congress from Alabama: Terri Sewell
First African-American woman elected to the Colorado State House of Representatives, representing District 42 from Aurora, Colorado: Rhonda Fields
First African-American woman to be attorney general in New Jersey: Paula Dow
First African-American woman elected mayor of Tacoma, Washington. [96]
First African-American woman to earn tenure in the College of Engineering at Purdue University: Monica Cox [97]
First African-American elected to the Idaho Senate: Cherie Buckner-Webb
Second African-American woman and the fourth African American to earn a doctoral degree in physics from The University of Alabama at Birmingham: Hadiyah-Nicole Green [98]
First African-American senator from South Carolina: Tim Scott [99] (Also the first African-American to serve both houses of the U.S. Congress.)
First African-American woman to be appointed to a seat on the New York Court of Appeals: Sheila Abdus-Salaam.
First African-American senator from New Jersey: Cory Booker
First African-American woman to serve as Chief Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia: Cynthia Eppes Hudson
First African-American woman to serve as a judge on the Maryland Court of Appeals, the state's highest court: Shirley M. Watts
First African-American senator elected from the South since Reconstruction: Tim Scott [100]
First African-American woman to represent New Jersey in the U.S. House of Representatives: Bonnie Watson Coleman
First African-American woman to be elected to the Illinois House of Representatives 103rd district: Carol Ammons
First woman and the first African American to lead Trinity College (Connecticut): Joanne Berger-Sweeney [101]
First African-American elected Speaker of the New York State Assembly: Carl Heastie [102]
First African-American Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky and first elected to statewide office in Kentucky: Jenean Hampton [103] [104]
First African-American woman elected to the Utah Legislature: Sandra Hollins
First African-American woman from Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, selected for the government's Senior Executive Service (SES): Juanita Christensen [105]
First African-American woman to serve as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), the second-largest school district in the United States: Michelle King
First African American to serve as president of Wellesley College: Paula Johnson [106]
First African-American United States Senator from California: Kamala Harris (see also: 2004, 2010)
First African-American elected lieutenant governor of New Jersey: Sheila Oliver [107]
First African-American out trans woman to be elected to public office in the United States: Andrea Jenkins
First African-American woman to serve as district attorney in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania: Kelley B. Hodge
First female African-American major-party candidate for governor: Stacey Abrams, Georgia
First African-American elected Lieutenant Governor of Michigan: Garlin Gilchrist [108]
First African-American Attorney General of New York: Letitia James [109]
First African-American and First woman elected Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates: Adrienne A. Jones
First African-American elected Lieutenant Governor of Illinois: Juliana Stratton
First African-American woman elected to represent Connecticut in Congress: Jahana Hayes
First African-American woman elected to Congress from Massachusetts: Ayanna Pressley
First African-American elected Attorney General of Kentucky: Daniel Cameron
First Surgeon General for the State of California: Nadine Burke Harris [110]
First African-American woman elected to be chair of the Michigan Democratic Party: Lavora Barnes
First African-American woman to serve as director of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) in its 143-year history: Ngozi Ezike [111]
First African-American congresswoman elected in Missouri's history: Cori Bush [112]
First African-American elected Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina: Mark Robinson
First African-American senator from Georgia and first African-American Democratic Senator from the South: Raphael Warnock [113]
First African-American woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Missouri: Robin Ransom [114]
First African-American woman elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia: Winsome Sears
First African-American woman to serve as Secretary of the State of Connecticut: Natalie Braswell [115]
First woman and third Black person to serve as the New York City Police Commissioner: Keechant Sewell [116]
First African-American woman to serve as United States federal judge for the Northern District of Mississippi: Debra M. Brown
First African-American elected Attorney General of Maryland: Anthony Brown
First African-American woman elected Attorney General of Massachusetts: Andrea Campbell
First African-American elected Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania: Austin Davis
First African-American congresswoman elected in Pennsylvania's history: Summer Lee
First African-American elected governor of Maryland: Wes Moore
First African-American elected Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives: Joe Tate
First African-American woman elected Secretary of State of Connecticut: Stephanie Thomas
First African-American elected Secretary of State of California: Shirley Weber
First African-American woman elected to an executive office in Delaware (the Delaware Auditor of Accounts): Lydia York
First African-American woman elected Speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives: Joanna McClinton [117]
First African American elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon: Janelle Bynum
First African-American woman to earn a Ph.D. in Robotics from the University of Michigan: Oluwami Dosunmu-Ogunbi [118]
First woman and first African American to represent Delaware in both chambers of Congress: Lisa Blunt Rochester

See also

References

  1. ↑ Juguo, Zhang. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Quest for the Abolition of the Color Line, Routledge, 2001 - ISBN   0-415-93087-1
  2. ↑ Herbst, Philip H. The Color of Words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States, Intercultural Press, p. 57, 1997 - ISBN   1-877864-97-8
  3. ↑ "Michigan Law History, Timeline". Michigan Law School. Retrieved August 26, 2025.
  4. ↑ "Michigan Law History, Timeline". Michigan Law School. Retrieved August 26, 2025.
  5. ↑ Knight, Christina (November 7, 2013). "P.B.S. Pinchback. The Black Governor Who Almost Was a Senator". The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  6. ↑ Mitchell, Brian K. (2021). Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana. New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection. pp. 232–233. ISBN   978-0-917860-83-6.
  7. ↑ Gregg, John (February 23, 2012). "Standing with Black trailblazer James S. Hinton". Indianapolisrecorder.com. Retrieved October 25, 2017.
  8. ↑ Indiana Black History Public Art Legacy Project Archived 2013-03-16 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ↑ Leslie, Kent Anderson (July 21, 2020). "Lucy Craft Laney 1854-1933". New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved August 26, 2025.
  10. ↑ "Looking for Black history stories at Union Baptist Cemetery". Cincinnati Herald. March 6, 2021. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  11. ↑ Bordin, Ruth (2001). Women at Michigan. University of Michigan Press. p. 38. ISBN   9780472087938 . Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  12. ↑ Gavin, Kara (February 12, 2020). "Pioneers and pathbreakers: Black History milestones at Michigan Medicine". Michigan Medicine. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  13. ↑ MICCOLIS, Alison (February 16, 2021). "Making Black History". The Butler Collegian. Retrieved August 22, 2025.
  14. ↑ Vogel, Nathaniel (April 2002). "The Mismeasure of Maria Baldwin". Peacework Magazine. Archived from the original on October 23, 2007. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  15. ↑ Dorgan, Lauren R. (May 22, 2002). "Committee Renames Local Agassiz School". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  16. ↑ "Dr. Halle Tanner Dillon Johnson". Changing the Face of Medicine. Retrieved August 12, 2025.
  17. ↑ "Sarah Garland Boyd Jones (1866 - 1905)". Virginia Changemakers. Retrieved September 11, 2025.
  18. ↑ Webster, Raymond B. (1999). African American firsts in science & technology. Detroit: Gale Group. p. 166. ISBN   9780787638764 . Retrieved September 11, 2025.
  19. ↑ "Dr. Eliza Ann Grier". Changing the Face of Medicine. Retrieved August 9, 2025.
  20. ↑ "University History". Matilda A. Evans. University of South Carolina. Retrieved August 20, 2025.
  21. ↑ "Beulah Wright Porter Price Physician and educator". Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. June 23, 2022. Retrieved August 31, 2025.
  22. ↑ Wheaton, John Frances "Frank, J. Frank", Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, Accessed October 5, 2018.
  23. ↑ "A Timeline of Women's Legal History in the United States" (PDF).
  24. ↑ Hayes, Phebe (June 1, 2023). "Emma Wakefield-Paillet, MD". 64 Parishes. Retrieved September 3, 2025.
  25. ↑ David J. Bodenhamer and Robert G. Barrows (November 22, 1994). Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (1994 ed.). Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. p. 597. ISBN   0-253-31222-1 . Retrieved August 26, 2025.
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