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."Juguo, Zhang. W. E. B. Du Bois: The Quest for the Abolition of the Color Line, Routledge, 2001 - Herbst, Philip H. The Color of Words: an encyclopaedic dictionary of ethnic bias in the United States, Intercultural Press, p. 57, 1997 -
In addition to major national- and international-level firsts, African-Americans have achieved firsts on a statewide basis.
18th century
1760s 1768 First African American elected to public office in the United States: Wentworth Cheswill
19th century
1820s
1823 First African American to graduate from any college: Middlebury College : Alexander Twilight
1826 First African American to graduate from Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts: Edward Jones First African American to graduate from Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine: John Brown Russwurm
1828 First African American to graduate from Ohio University: John Newton Templeton
1830s
1832 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.
1834 First African American to study at Yale University (only allowed to audit classes at the Yale Divinity School): James W.C. Pennington
1836 First African American to graduate from any flagship state university and earn a bachelor's degree (from Newark College in Delaware): Isaiah DeGrasse First African American to attend Western Reserve College: John Sykes Fayette
1838 First African American to graduate from the University of Vermont (Class of 1838): Andrew Harris
1840s
1844 First African American to pass a state bar exam an become a licensed lawyer: Maine: Macon Bolling Allen
1847 First African American to graduate from Rush Medical College, Chicago, Illinois: David J. Peck
1850s
1853 First African American known to graduate from Madison University, now known as Colgate University (AB degree): Henry Livingston Simpson
1854 First African American admitted to the Ohio bar: John Mercer Langston
1857 First African American to graduate from Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut: Cortlandt Creed First African American to graduate from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut: Richard Henry Greene
1859 First African American on the staff at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Aaron Molyneaux Hewlett
1860s
1862 First African American to teach at the Penn School (now the Penn Center (Saint Helena Island, South Carolina): Charlotte Forten Grimké
1865 First African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Cleveland, Ohio: Charles Burleigh Purvis
1868 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 First African American to serve in the Alabama Senate: Benjamin F. Royal First African-American faculty member of the Howard University College of Medicine, Washington D.C.: Alexander Thomas Augusta
1869 First African-American woman to earn a medical degree in New York State: Susan McKinney Steward First African-American teacher in the Little Rock, Arkansas (Pulaski County) school district: Charlotte Andrews Stephens First African American to earn a law degree from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: George Lewis Ruffin
1870s
1870 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 First African American from Alabama elected to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives: Benjamin S. Turner First African American on the faculty at Berea College, Berea, Kentucky: Julia Britton Hooks First African American to complete a BA at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Richard Theodore Greener First African American professor at Harvard University: George Franklin Grant First African American student enrolled at Cornell College of Mount Vernon, Iowa: Charles Ruff
1871 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) First two African Americans to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Howard University College of Medicine in Washington D.C.: James L.N. Bowen and George W. Brooks
1872 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) First African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of Michigan Medical School: William Henry Fitzbutler First African-American Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and of any state legislature: John R. Lynch
1873 First African American elected to the Tennessee General Assembly: Sampson W. Keeble First African-American professor of the University of South Carolina (USC): Richard Theodore Greener
1874 First African American to graduate from Newton Theological Institution: George Washington Williams First African American to graduate from Bates College of Lewiston, Maine: Henry Wilkins Chandler One of the first African Americans to graduate from Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut: Edward Alexander Bouchet (See also the 1857 Richard Henry Greene entry)
1875 First African American to attend and graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the early 1870s: Lottie Wilson Jackson First African American to complete a BA (art and the law) at the University of South Carolina: Thomas McCants Stewart First African American to complete a BA at the University of Wisconsin: William Smith Noland
1876 First African American elected to the Illinois General Assembly: John W. E. Thomas First African-American woman to be admitted to the University of Michigan: Mary Henrietta Graham First African American to enroll in the University of Kansas: Lizzie Ann Smith First African American to earn a Ph.D. from an American university as well as the sixth American of any race to earn a Ph.D. in physics (Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut): Edward Bouchet First African-American woman to earn an M.D. from Syracuse University School of Medicine, now known as State University of New York Upstate Medical University: Sarah Loguen Fraser
1877 First African American to graduate from Boston University School of Law: Emanuel Molyneaux Hewlett First African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee: James Monroe Jamison First African American to graduate from Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island: Inman E. Page
1878 First African American elected mayor in New York State (village president of Cleveland): Ned Sherman First African American appointed an officer of the Boston Police Department: Horatio J. Homer
1879 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 to graduate from Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa: Hannibal Kershaw First African American to graduate from the University of Iowa College of Law: Alexander G. Clark Jr.
1880s
1880 First African American elected to the Indiana General Assembly: James Sidney HintonIndiana Black History Public Art Legacy Project First African American to graduate from the University of Michigan: Mary Henrietta Graham First African American elected to the Ohio General Assembly: George Washington Williams First African American graduate of Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee: William Henderson Franklin
1881 First African American to head a hospital under civilian authority when appointed by President Chester Arthur as Surgeon-in-Charge at the Freedmen's Hospital, Washington D.C.: Charles Burleigh Purvis First African American to enroll at the University of California at Berkeley (no record of graduation): Alexander Jones
1882 First African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine: Nathan Francis Mossell First African American to graduate from the University of Minnesota (B.A. degree): Andrew F. Hilyer
1883 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 First African American to earn a Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan: Robert J. Boland
1884 First African American woman to practice medicine in Ohio: Consuelo Clark-Stewart First African American to graduate from the New York State Normal School, which would become the University at Albany, SUNY (graduated with a teaching certificate): Evelena Williams First African American to graduate from the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in Omaha and the first African-American doctor in the state of Nebraska: Matthew Ricketts First African American to graduate from the law program of Columbia College of Law (later George Washington University), earning an LL.B. in 1884 and LL.M. in 1885: Samuel Laing Williams
1885 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 First African American to complete a BA at the University of Kansas: Blanche Ketene Bruce
1886 First African American dentist to be licensed and practice in the state of Virginia: Charles B. Jackson
1887 First documented African-American woman to graduate from an Indiana college or university when she completed a BA at Butler University: Gertrude Amelia Mahorney First African American to receive the Ph.D. degree from Boston University: John W. E. Bowen Sr.
1888 First African-American woman to become a licensed doctor in the U.S. state of Massachusetts: Juan Bennett Drummond First African American to earn a law degree at the University of Pennsylvania Law School: Aaron Albert Mossell First African-American medical doctor of Durham, North Carolina: Aaron McDuffie Moore First African-American woman and first woman to practice medicine in the state of Mississippi: Verina Morton Jones Reportedly the first African American elected to the Kansas legislature: Alfred Fairfax
1889 First African-American female principal in Massachusetts and the Northeastern United States: Maria Louise Baldwin, supervising white faculty and a predominantly white student body at the Agassiz Grammar School in Cambridge, Massachusetts (renamed the Maria L. Baldwin School in 2004). First African American to pass the California Board of Medical Examination: Monroe Alpheus Majors First African American admitted to practice law in Nebraska: Silas Robbins First African-American woman to graduate from Spencerian College of Commerce in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Addie Waites Hunton First African-American nun to serve in the state of Georgia: Mathilda Beasley First African-American woman to complete a Bachelor of Music (piano performance) at Oberlin Conservatory, Oberlin, Ohio: Harriet Gibbs Marshall
1890s
1890