List of African-American officeholders during Reconstruction
, Robert DeLarge, Josiah Walls, Jefferson Long, Joseph Rainey and Robert B. Elliott
Many scholars have identified more than 1,500 African American officeholders during the Reconstruction Era. Historian Canter Brown, Jr. noted that in some states, such as Florida, the highest number of African Americans were elected or appointed to offices after 1876 and the end of Reconstruction. The following is a partial list some of the most notable of the officeholders pre-1900.
Federal office
Senate
- Hiram Rhodes Revels, Senator from Mississippi
- Blanche Bruce, Senator from Mississippi
House
State office
Alabama
- William Hooper Councill, clerk in the Alabama legislature in 1872 and 1874
Arkansas
- James M. Alexander, Arkansas House, first African-American justice of the peace as well ass postmaster, school trustee, and grand jury member.
- Joseph Carter Corbin, chief clerk of the Little Rock Post Office, state superintendent of public schools
- William Henry Grey, Arkansas Constitutional Convention, Arkansas House, Arkansas Senate
- James T. White, Arkansas House of Representatives, Arkansas Senate
Florida
- Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs, Secretary of State and Secretary of Public Instruction of Florida
- Thomas Van Renssalaer Gibbs, Florida House of Representatives, son of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs
- Robert Meacham, Florida Senator
- Charles H. Pearce, Florida Senate
- Thomas Sterling Delaney Florida House of Representatives,
Georgia
- Eli Barnes, state legislator from Hancock County
- Tunis Campbell, State Senator from Georgia
- Abram Colby, state representative from Greene County
- James Ward Porter, state legislator from Chatham County
- Henry McNeal Turner, state legislator from Bibb County
- William Guilford, state legislator from Upson County
- William Henry Harrison, state legislator from Hancock County
- Aaron Alpeoria Bradley, state senator from Chatham County
- Thomas M. Allen, state representative from Jasper County
- Thomas Beard, state representative from Richmond County
- Edwin Belcher, state representative from Wilkes County
- George H. Clower, state representative from Monroe County
- Abram Colby, state representative from Greene County
- Romulus Moore, state representative from Columbia County
- John T. Costin, state representative from Talbot County
- Madison Davis, state representative from Clarke County
- Monday Floyd, state representative from Morgan County
- F. H. Fyall, state representative from Macon County
- Samuel Gardner, state representative from Warren County
- William A. Golden, state representative from Liberty County
- Ulysses L. Houston, state representative from Bryan County
- James M. Simms, state representative from Chatham County
- Philip Joiner, state representative from Dougherty County
- George Linder, state representative from Laurens County
- Robert Lumpkin, state representative from Macon County
- Peter O'Neal, state representative from Baldwin County
- Alfred Richardson, state representative from Clarke County
- Alexander Stone, state representative from Jefferson County
- Abraham Smith, state representative from Muscogee County
- John Warren, state representative from Burke County
- Samuel Williams, state representative from Harris County
Louisiana
- Theophile T. Allain, Louisiana House of Representatives, Louisiana Senate
- Oscar James Dunn, Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana 1868–1871, First African American elected to a state-level position in the United States.
- Pierre Caliste Landry, Louisiana House of Representatives
- Milton Morris, Louisiana House of Representatives, represented Ascension Parish
- P.B.S. Pinchback, governor of Louisiana
Massachusetts
- George Lewis Ruffin, Massachusetts Legislature, 1870
Michigan
- Samuel C. Watson, State Board of Estimates, 1875
Mississippi
- Peter Barrow, State Senator from Mississippi
- Jesse Freeman Boulden, Mississippi House of Representatives
- Blanche Bruce, Bolivar County sheriff, tax collector, supervisor of education; sergeant-at-arms for the Mississippi state senate in 1870; state senator in 1874
- George W. Gayles, Mississippi House of Representatives
- James D. Lynch, Secretary of State of Mississippi
- John R. Lynch, Mississippi House of Representatives, elected to U.S. House of Representatives
- James J. Spelman Mississippi House of Representatives, justice of the peace and alderman of the city of Canton, Mississippi
North Carolina
- Israel Abbott, member of the North Carolina House of Representatives
- John O. Crosby, 1875 delegate from Warren County, North Carolina to the North Carolina State Constitutional Convention
- James Walker Hood, commissioner for the states public schools and assistant superintendent of public instruction in North Carolina
- John S. Leary, North Carolina State legislature, alderman in Fayetteville, North Carolina
South Carolina
- Richard H. Cain, South Carolina Senate, later U.S. House and U.S. Senate
- Francis Lewis Cardozo, Secretary of State of South Carolina, South Carolina State Treasurer
- Robert B. Elliott, State House lawmaker, and U.S. Representative from South Carolina
- Richard Theodore Greener, South Carolina school system commissioner, 1875.
- Alfred T. B. Hunter, state representative from Laurens County
- Albert Osceola Jones, clerk of South Carolina House of Representatives, 1868-1876.
- Robert Smalls, South Carolina Representative, South Carolina Senator, U.S. Representative
- D. Augustus Straker, South Carolina House of Representatives, also Inspector of Customs at the port of Charleston and clerk in the auditors office of the treasury in Washington
- Alonzo J. Ransier, Lt. Governor of South Carolina and later served as US Congressman
- Jonathan J. Wright, lawyer, South Carolina State Senator and First Black Associate Justice of South Carolina Supreme Court
Tennessee
- Samuel A. McElwee, member of the Tennessee General Assembly
Texas
Virginia
- William H. Ash
- Thomas Bayne
- Samuel P. Bolling
- Phillip S. Bolling
- Tazewell Branch
- Peter J. Carter
- Asa Coleman
- Johnson Collins
- Aaron Commodore
- John Wesley Cromwell, Clerk of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, Washington D.C. government clerk
- Isaac Dabbs
- William Gilliam
- Joseph P. Evans
- Peter K. Jones
- Peter G. Morgan
- Armistead S. Nickens
- Richard G. L. Paige
Washington, D.C.
- Solomon G. Brown, House of Delegates for Washington D.C., employee at the Smithsonian
- John Mercer Langston, appointed member of the Board of Health of the District of Columbia
- John H. Smythe, 1872, clerk in the U.S. Census Bureau, clerk in the Treasury department, 1878 ambassador to Liberia
Local office
Arkansas
- Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, Arkansas, judge, younger brother of Jonathan Clarkson Gibbs.
Colorado
- Henry O. Wagoner, clerk in the first Colorado State Legislature in 1876
Louisiana
- Thomas Morris Chester, superintendent of school district
- James Lewis, administrator of public improvements in New Orleans in 1872, appointed New Orleans naval officer in 1877
- Pierre Magloire, Avoyelles Parish Sheriff, Louisiana
- Alexander Noguez, Avoyelles Parish Sheriff, Louisiana
Maryland
- William H. Day Baltimore Inspector of Schools, in 1878 he was elected to the school board of directors at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Massachusetts
- James Monroe Trotter, mail agent
Nebraska
- Edwin R. Overall, appointed mail carrier in 1869
North Carolina
- John Hudson Riddick, city council of Norfolk and appointed United States deputy marshal, 1872
Ohio
- Jeremiah A. Brown, Cleveland, bailiff of the county probate court, deputy sheriff and county prison turnkey, then clerk of the City Boards of Equalization and Revision.
- Robert James Harlan, mail agent
South Carolina
- Harrison N. Bouey, probate judge in Edgefield County
Virginia
- P. H. A. Braxton, constable in King William County in 1872, collector at the United States Custom House in Westmoreland County
Washington, D.C.
- William E. Matthews, clerk in the United States Postal Service in Washington D.C. in 1870, the first black person to receive an appointment in that department
- Josiah T. Settle, reading clerk of the Washington, D.C. House of Delegates, clerk in the Board of Public Works, as an accountant in the Board of Audits, and as a trustee of the county schools for the district