R. S. Taylor was a post Reconstruction era politician in North Carolina who served in the North Carolina Senate from 1885 to 1888 representing Edgecombe County.Work, Monroe N. (January 1920). "Some Negro Members of Reconstruction Conventions and Legislatures and of Congress" (PDF). The Journal of Negro History. 5 (1): 75-79. Retrieved July 27, 2024 .
He became a justice of the peace September 1, 1873.
He was a Democrat and served as the liberal executive committee chairman for Edgecombe in 1882. However, by 1884 when he was listed as a Republican and was a speaker at republican meetings in Edgecombe.
Taylor was first elected to the senate in 1885 serving the 5th district for Edgecombe as a republican. He was one of two black senators in the 1885 session along with George Henry White. He was described at the time in The Tarborough Southerner as a Jamaican carpetbagger. He was elected for a second term to serve 1887 and 1888. In March 1887 he gave a speech on disfranchisement and put forward a bill to address the issue.
See also African American officeholders from the end of the Civil War until before 1900
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