How+have+different+races+been+represented+in+the+U.S.+government

Race has not varied much in US politics. Just this year, the US has had its first black US president. All the presidents up to this year have been white presidents, dating all the way back to George Washington. However some people who are of different races have taken different roles in US politics. The very first African American to have governed an important role in US politics was Hiram Revels. He was a Republican in Mississippi who was the first African American to take a seat in the US senate in 1870. In the same year however Joseph Hayne Rainey became the first African American to become a part of the US House of Representatives. But two years later in 1872 Victoria Woodhull was nominated by the National Radical Reformers and became the first African American woman presidential candidate. Her running mate, Frederick Douglass, was the first African-American vice presidential candidate. From this point on more African Americans took roles in the US political system. Then in 1874, Blanche Kelso Bruce, a Republican from Mississippi, was the first African-American elected to a full six-year term in the Senate. A former slave, Bruce also served in several federal positions until his death in 1898. In 1952 Charlotta A. Bass, nominated by the Progressive Party, became the first African-American woman to run for vice president. In 1968 Shirley Chisholm, a Democrat from New York, was the first African-American woman elected to the House of Representatives. In 1976, Chisholm was the first African-American to deliver the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. In 1972, Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm became the first African-American from a major political party to run for president. Then in 1989, L. Douglas Wilder, a Democrat from Virginia, was the first African-American to be elected governor in the United States. In 1992, Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois, was the first African-American woman elected to the Senate. Then finally in 2008, Barack Obama is the first African-American to win the presidency. But another major moment in African American politics was the Reconstruction Era. The Reconstruction Era was post civil war (1865-1877) and that was when African American population went way up. Then 4 years later the 15th amendment was ratified and it gave African American men the right to vote. WHAT NEXT: I am going to look more into races in the U.S. government that isn’t African American. Since so far I have mostly concentrated on African Americans and I need to look at more variety.

AnnBibWong