1.                    In 1872 - Frederick Douglass was the First African-American nominated for Vice-President on the ticket of the Equal Rights Party with suffragist Victoria Claflin Woodhull running as President.

2.                  In 1880 - Blanche Kelso Bruce was a U.S. Senator from Mississippi and first Black person to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate.  Mr. Bruce was born a slave in Virginia in 1841 and was the 2^nd African-American in the U.S. Senate pushing civil rights for Blacks, Native Americans, Chinese Immigrants and former Confederates. He made history on February 14, 1879, (according to the Historical Minutes Note) because he was the first African-American to preside over the Senate (session).  According to the “Almanac of Women and Minorities in American Politics” among other sources he was placed as first among African-American candidates, with a nomination at the Republican Convention in 1880 in Chicago.  Additionally, sources indicate he was nominated by the Republican Party for Vice-President in 1880 with Benjamin Harrison as President and was nominated again in 1888.  Mr. Bruce was appointed Register of the Treasury by President James Garfield in 1891-1893, making Bruce the first black whose signature was represented on U.S. paper currency, he served as the District of Columbia recorder of deeds in 1891-1893, and again he was appointed the Register of Treasury in 1897 until his death in 1889.

3.                  In 1904 - George Edwin Taylor ran for President on a national African-American Political party “The National Liberty Party”.  He was born in Arkansas in 1857 and was a Newspaper man and Labor Champion.  He was a black business owner and editor of the labor advocate newspaper “The Labor Advocate” in La Crosse Wisconsin.  He became interested in politics as reflected in his editorship of the “Wisconsin Labor Advocate”, and maintained a life-long interest in politics.  By 1904 he became involved in an all African-American political party “The National Liberty Party”, where he was nominated as its candidate for the office of the U.S. President.  He ran on a platform of “true liberty” for all people, as outlined in the Constitution that included universal suffrage, equal protection through anti-lynching laws, pensions for ex-slaves and political representation for citizens of the District of Columbia.

4.                    In 1968 – Rev. Channing E. Phillips of Washington, a pastor, community activist and civil rights leader who was the first black man nominated for President by a major national party.  He served as President of the Housing Development Corporation (a Government-backed housing venture in the Nation’s Capital) and served seven years as the pastor of Lincoln Congregational Temple United Church of Christ in Washington.  He headed Robert F. Kennedy’s Presidential campaign in the District of Columbia in 1968, and at the Democratic convention in Chicago he was nominated as favorite son candidate by District of Columbia delegation at the Democratic Convention in Chicago and received 67 ½ votes (the delegation had been pledged to Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, but after the senator's assassination, it nominated Phillips as a favorite son.)  Mr. Phillips said his candidacy was meant to show “the Negro vote must not be taken for granted.

5.                   In 1972 - Congresswoman Shirley B. Chisholm of New York became the first African-American woman nominated for President.  She was a contender for the Democratic Party's nod, with her name appearing on primary ballots in 12 states. At the party's national convention in Miami, she received 152 votes.

6.                    In 1984 - Rev. Jesse Jackson of Chicago made his first bid for the Democratic nomination for President, with his keynote speech at the national convention in San Francisco stirring a "rainbow" of people disaffected by the policies of Republican President Ronald Reagan.  The Rainbow Coalition solidified into a political organization Jackson used in 1988 to make a more formidable run for the Democratic nomination. He won 11 Democratic Party primaries and caucuses, including Virginia's, which was held on the nation's first Super Tuesday, garnering 7 million votes in the process. 

7.                  In 1988 – Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for President again and at the Democratic party's 1988 national convention in Atlanta, Jackson won 1,218½ votes the second highest behind party nominee Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis.

8.                   In 1988 - Also running for president was Dr. Lenora B. Fulani of New York, a psychologist and social activist, who held top slot on the New Alliance Party's ticket. She is the first African-American to get on the ballot for president in all 50 states. She ran again in 1992.

9.                    In 1991 - Virginia Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who had made history nearly two years earlier as the nation's first elected African-American governor, flirted with a presidential bid.  In September 1991, he announced that he was seeking the Democratic nomination for president, however, he pulled out of the race just four months later (January 1992), due to an under funded campaign and growing monetary woes.

10.                In 1996 - Republican Alan Keyes of Maryland, a former assistant secretary of state and former U.N. ambassador, ran for the GOP presidential nomination, but the staunch conservative rarely polled more than single digits in primary contests across the country.  

11.              In 2000 – Alan Keyes ran again.  He was an announced candidate for his party's nomination, but his campaign has showed little momentum.

12.                In 2004 – U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois seeked the Democratic Presidential Nomination during the crowded contest (a 10-person field was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination).  Ms. Braun served as Ambassador to New Zealand made history in 1992 as the First African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate.  She joined the presidential nomination race in early 2003, but dropped out just days before the Iowa caucuses in early 2004.

13.                In 2004 – Rev. Al Sharpton, pastor and political and civil rights activist, also seeked the Democratic Presidential Nomination this year.  Rev. Sharpton is the head of the National Action Network, and he campaigned for approximately 14 months before withdrawing from the race and supporting the party’s nominee U.S. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.  In the primaries Sharpton was second place in the DC Primary where he won 20% of the vote.

Note:  1968, Eldridge Cleaver, then minister of information of the Black Panther Party, and comedian-turned-civil rights activist Dick Gregory shared the presidential nominations of the Peace & Freedom Party. Cleaver was on the ballot in at least five states and got about 10,000 votes; Gregory got almost 50,000 votes in the nine states where he was on the ballot.

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