This is a list of African Americans who have served in the United States Senate. The Senate has had 12 African-American elected or appointed officeholders. Two each served during both the 19th and 20th centuries.[1]
Of the 12 African-American senators, seven were popularly elected (including one that previously had been appointed by his state's governor), two were elected by the state legislature prior to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913 (which mandated the direct election of U.S. senators by the people of each state), and three were appointed by a state governor and have not subsequently been elected.[citation needed]
During the founding of the federal government, African Americans were consigned to a status of second-class citizenship or enslaved.[3] No African American served in federal elective office before the ratification in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, although some (including Alexander Twilight, as state senator in Vermont) served in state elective offices concurrently with slavery. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude.[4]
History
Reconstruction to Obama: 1870–2011
Hiram Rhodes Revels (left) was the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate; Carol Moseley Braun was the first African American woman elected to the chamber.
In 1872, the Louisiana state legislature elected P. B. S. Pinchback to the Senate. However, the 1872 elections in Louisiana were challenged by white Democrats, and Pinchback was never seated in Congress.
The Mississippi state legislature elected Blanche Bruce in 1875, but Republicans lost power of the Mississippi state legislature in 1876. Bruce was not elected to a second term in 1881.[5] In 1890, the Democratic-dominated state legislature passed a new constitutiondisfranchising most black voters. Every other Southern state also passed disfranchising constitutions by 1908, thus excluding African Americans from the political system in the entire former Confederacy. This situation persisted well into the 1960s, when federal enforcement of constitutional rights under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 commenced.
The next black United States senator, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, took office in 1967. He was the first African American to be elected by popular vote after the ratification in 1913 of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which established direct election of United States senators instead of indirect election by a state legislature. A Republican, Brooke was the first black senator to serve two terms in the Senate, holding office until 1979.[5] From 1979 to 1993, there were no black members of the United States Senate.
Between 1993 and 2010, three black members of the Illinois Democratic Party would hold Illinois's Class 3 Senate seat at different times. Carol Moseley Braun entered the Senate in 1993 and was the first African-American woman in the Senate.[5] She served one term. Barack Obama entered the Senate in 2005 and, in 2008, became the first African American to be elected president of the United States.[6] Obama was still a senator when he was elected president and Roland Burris, also an African American, was appointed to fill the remainder of Obama's Senate term. Burris only briefly ran for election and did not enter the Democratic primary.[7] From 2011 to 2013, there were no black senators for the first time since Obama was elected in 2004.
Contemporary Period: 2013–present
Following Obama's election as president, the next two black senators, Tim Scott of South Carolina and Mo Cowan of Massachusetts, were both appointed by governors to fill the terms of Jim DeMint and John Kerry, respectively, who had resigned their positions.[5] Thus, 2013 marked the first time in history that more than one African American served in the Senate at the same time.[8] On October 16 of that year, Cory Booker of New Jersey was elected in a special election to fill the seat of Frank R. Lautenberg, who died in office earlier in the year.[9] Booker was the first African-American senator to be elected since Obama and, when he was sworn into office, became the first to represent New Jersey. He later was elected to a full six-year term in the 2014 mid-term elections. Scott retained his seat in a special election in 2014 and also secured a full six-year term in 2016.
Elected to complete an unfinished term after Mississippi was readmitted to the Union on February 23, 1870. First African American to serve in the United States Senate and Congress. Retired.[12][13]
First African-American female and African-American Democrat to serve in the United States Senate. First African American to serve in the Senate from Illinois. Lost reelection.[17][18]
Appointed by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of President-electBarack Obama. First African American to succeed another African American in the Senate. Not a candidate during special election following his appointment.[7]
Appointed by South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of Jim DeMint. First African American to serve in the Senate from South Carolina. First African American to serve in both chambers of the United States Congress. [20][21]
Appointed by Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick to fill vacancy caused by the resignation of John Kerry. Not a candidate during special election following his appointment. First African-American senator appointed by an African-American governor. The first African American to serve alongside another African-American senator: Tim Scott. Retired.[22][23]
First African American to serve in the Senate from California. First African-American senator to be elected as Vice President. Resigned following election as Vice President of the United States.[note 1][28][29]
Appointed by Governor Gavin Newsom to fill the vacancy created by the death of Senator Dianne Feinstein.[31] First openly LGBT African-American senator.[32] Not a candidate for election. Resigned.
When seated, will become first African American to serve in the Senate from Maryland and the first African-American woman to serve alongside another African-American woman in the Senate (the other being Lisa Blunt Rochester).[33]
When seated, will become first woman and first African American to serve in the Senate from Delaware and the first African-American woman to serve alongside another African-American woman in the Senate (the other being Angela Alsobrooks).[34]
African Americans elected to the United States Senate, but not seated
^ Harris is the child of a black, Caribbean-born father and an India-born mother.[26] Other African Americans who were elected to Congress and were born in the Caribbean or to Caribbean-born parents include Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Rep. Yvette D. Clarke, Del. Stacey Plaskett, Rep. Mia Love, Del. Melvin H. Evans, Del. Donna Christian-Christensen, and Del. Victor O. Frazer. Chisholm was the child of Caribbean-born parents and was the first African-American woman to be elected to Congress.[27]
^Sources for label "African American" or "Black" include:
"African American Senators". United States Senate. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) became the first African American to represent California in the United States Senate on January 3, 2017.
"Kamala Harris's File". PolitiFact. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018. Harris, a Democrat, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2016. She became California's attorney general in January 2011. She was the first woman and the first African-American to hold the office in California's history.
Weigel, David (January 9, 2018). "Democrats Add Harris, Booker to Senate Judiciary Committee". The Washington Post. Retrieved 1 July 2018. The Senate Judiciary Committee will welcome its first African American members in this century after Democrats added Sens. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to the panel that handles judicial nominations and appointments to the Justice Department.
McPhate, Mike (September 29, 2016). "California Today: A Snooze of a Senate Race". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2 July 2018. Retrieved 2 July 2018. The race to succeed Senator Barbara L. Boxer of California was supposed to be one of the marquee contests of the year ... It offers a window into the ethnic kaleidoscope that is California: Pitting a Latino, Representative Loretta Sanchez, against an African-American, Kamala Harris, the state attorney general.
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