Has any African-American, male or female, run for president or vice persident of the united states? How many African American senators are there?
Al Sharpton did. He made an ass out of himself as usual.
Jesse Jackson was another, as was Alan Keyes (same one as the failed senatorial candidate in IL).
There is now one African-American senator, Barak Obama. The last black senator was Carol Mosely-Braun, also from Illinois, who was defeated in her reelection bid in 1998, if memory serves.
Shirley Chisholm, the former Brooklyn Congresswoman who just passed away January 1 of this year, ran for President in 1972 and earned 152 delegates to that years Democratic National Convention.
No African-American has run for President or Vice-President on a major party ticket in the general election (as opposed to running for the nomination). However, Frederick Douglass ran for Vice President on the Equal Rights Party ticket in 1872 (Victoria Woodhull being the candidate for President).
And, if you’re looking for smaller parties, both James Ford (in 1932 and 1936) and Angela Davis (in 1980 and 1984) ran for vice-president on the Communist ticket. In 2000, Ezola Foster ran as vice-president (with Pat Buchanan) on the Reform party ticket.
And, of course, there are those rumors about Warren Harding.
To correct my post, Ford also ran in 1940.
Check some of the minor parties, too - Lenora Fulani was a black woman who ran in '96 (I forget which party), and I have no doubt there have been others. With the major parties, the Prez and VP candidates have been universally middle-aged or old white men (except for Geraldine Ferraro in '84 - she was a middle-aged white woman).
Fulani ran more than once, I’m pretty sure. Wasn’t she also Nader’s running mate in 2000?
–Cliffy
Nope, that was Winona LaDuke. White as my tighty whities.
You know, I have never-ever seen it misspelled that way before.
Almost elegant.
That can be interpreted a number of ways. 
She’s white as in Caucasian, but she’s also Native American - Ojibwe, IIRC. So not white as in European descent, in case anyone was interested.
To correct Ravenman’s spelling, since it’d mess with searching, it’s Barack Obama. I believe he was mentioned as being only the 5th black/African-American US Senator since Reconstruction. The term African-American is probably exceptionally appropriate for him, since his dad was from Kenya, while his (white) mother was born and raised in Kansas.
:smack: I mentioned Barack Obama being biracial but didn’t think to question LaDuke’s heritage - I don’t know if she has any heritage other than Ojibwe. [/hijack]
Before Jesse Jackson . . . and before Shirley Chisholm . . . there was the Reverend Channing Phillips, who ran for President at the Democratic National Convention of 1968. He was the first African American placed in nomination for that office at a major party convention, and received 67.5 out of 2,622 votes on the first and only ballot.
(For younger Dopers, I should explain that in that bygone era you “ran for President” by having your name “placed in nomination” at the convention, and attempting to persuade or strong-arm delegates into voting for you, rather than by running in a succession of primaries as you do today.)
She’s primarily known as a Native American activist.
Most left-leaning minor parties have had one or more non-white candidates for president or VP.
Five African-Americans have served as US Senators. The first two were Hiram Revels and Blanche K. Bruce, both of Mississippi and both elected during Reconstruction. Revels was elected to finish an uncompleted term from 1870 to 1871 (ironically, the same seat held by Jefferson Davis before the war), and Bruce was elected in 1874, serving one term.
Another African-American wasn’t elected until 1966, when Edward Brooke was elected as a Senator from Massachusettes. He was the first African-American elected Senator by a popular vote (Revels and Bruce being elected back what state legislatures did the voting) and served two terms before being defeated for reelection in 1978.
Carol Mosley Braun was elected to Senate from Illinois in 1992, becoming the first (and so far only) African-American woman to serve in the Senate. She lost her bid for reelection in 1998, but six years later in this last election cycle it was carried by Barack Obama, whose father is a Kenyan.
There was some talk that “Scoop” Jackson was going to ask Shirley Chisholm to be his running mate (in '76 if I remember right). He came very very close to winning the Democratic Nomination, and if so- he would have been a near shoe-in for the general election. Thus, if so- Shirley Chisholm would have been our first woman and first black VP. Do note this was only speculation amoung the press and campaign staffers. I think it would have been wonderful.
Four African-Americans have served as U.S. senators. Obama Barack isn’t African-American.
Although I see him constantly referred to as such (and it’s possibly to his political advantage to be seen that way) his father was a Kenyan expatriate from the Luo tribe who married his mother. His other family lives in Kenya now. He’s Kenyan-American, perhaps an East African-American, definitely black, just not African-American, i.e., not descended of U.S. slaves. He identifies strongly with African-American culture having gone to Columbia University in New York and working as a civil rights lawyer in Chicago in the 70s and married an African-American woman from a South Side family. That’s his adopted culture and probable legacy, just not his heritage.
So you could correctly call him the fifth black person to serve in the Senate since Reconstruction, or the first Senator born of an African expatriate, just not the fifth African-American. Kenya is waaAaay over in East Africa. Most U.S. slaves came from West Africa.
Of course, if enough people INSIST he’s African-American there’s no doubt in my mind no one’s going to listen to little ol’ me. We celebrated the end of the millennium on December 31, 1999, didn’t we? See, and I set my VCR for December 2000.
Since when does African-American refer only to descendants of US slaves? What about descendants of slaves of non-African descent? Does Asian-American similarly indicate something other than one’s geographic origin?