If you ask most people who the first Black person to run for president was, they’ll probably say Shirley Chisholm. Or maybe Jesse Jackson. If they’re really into history, they might guess Frederick Douglass.
Honestly? They’d be wrong.
While Chisholm was the first Black woman and the first to run for a major party nomination in 1972, and Douglass received a few stray convention votes in 1848 and 1888, the actual title belongs to a man named George Edwin Taylor. In 1904, he didn't just get a symbolic vote at a convention. He was the official nominee of a national political party. He ran a full campaign against the sitting president, Theodore Roosevelt.
It’s kinda wild that his name isn't a household staple. He lived this massive, cinematic life that basically mirrors the tragedy and hope of post-Civil War America. Born in the South, orphaned, homeless, then suddenly a power-player journalist in the Midwest—Taylor's story is the ultimate "how did we forget this?" mystery.
Why George Edwin Taylor is the first black person to run for president you’ve never heard of
To understand Taylor, you have to understand 1904. The Civil War was over, but the "Redemption" era of the South had effectively stripped Black Americans of their rights. The Republican Party—the "Party of Lincoln"—was starting to look more like the party of big business. Black voters felt abandoned.
Basically, they were politically homeless.
Taylor was a journalist and an editor, which back then meant he was essentially a professional loudmouth and community organizer. He started out as a Republican, then a Democrat, but he eventually realized neither side actually cared about the "Negro Problem," as it was called then.
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The National Negro Liberty Party
In 1904, a group of Black activists gathered in St. Louis. They were fed up. They formed the National Negro Liberty Party (sometimes called the National Liberty Party). They weren't just looking for a seat at the table; they wanted the whole kitchen.
They looked at George Edwin Taylor and said, "You’re our guy."
Taylor didn't take it lightly. He ran on a platform that was way ahead of its time. He wanted:
- Pensions for formerly enslaved people.
- Federal action against lynching.
- Independence for the Philippines and Puerto Rico.
- Full voting rights for residents of Washington, D.C.
It wasn't just a "Black" platform. It was a human rights platform. Taylor was trying to bridge the gap between the labor movement—which he had spent years writing about in his papers like the Wisconsin Labor Advocate—and the struggle for racial equality.
The 1904 Election: Roosevelt vs. Taylor
Running for president as a Black man in 1904 was, to put it mildly, dangerous.
The media at the time mostly ignored him or treated him like a curiosity. He didn't have the massive war chest of Theodore Roosevelt. He didn't have the institutional backing of the Democrats. What he had was a newspaper and a relentless travel schedule.
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You’ve got to imagine him stepping off trains in towns where Black people were barely allowed to walk on the sidewalk, handing out pamphlets and talking about universal suffrage. He managed to get on the ballot in several states, which was a logistical nightmare at the time.
He didn't win, obviously. Roosevelt crushed everyone. But Taylor proved that a Black man could lead a national ticket. He broke the psychological barrier that said the White House was a "Whites Only" club.
What about Shirley Chisholm and Frederick Douglass?
This is where the nuance kicks in. History isn't a straight line; it's a messy web.
- Frederick Douglass: In 1848, a delegate at the Liberty Party convention threw him a vote. In 1888, he got another vote at the Republican convention. But Douglass never actually "ran." He didn't campaign for the job. He was a symbol.
- Shirley Chisholm: She’s the one we remember because she ran for the Democratic nomination. That was huge. It meant she was playing in the big leagues of the two-party system. Her slogan "Unbought and Unbossed" still rings through political halls today.
- George Edwin Taylor: He was the first to be the official nominee of a national party and compete in the general election.
It’s sort of like the difference between being a guest star on a show and being the lead actor in an indie film. Both are important, but they’re different achievements.
The disappearing act: Why we forgot Taylor
Honestly, Taylor was forgotten because he was a radical. He didn't fit the neat narrative of "gradual progress." He was calling for reparations and an end to imperialism in 1904.
The Jim Crow era did a number on Black history. Records were lost, newspapers went out of business, and the story of the man from La Crosse, Wisconsin, who dared to challenge Teddy Roosevelt was buried under decades of systemic silence. It wasn't until historian Bruce L. Mouser started digging into the archives that Taylor’s story was pieced back together in his 2011 biography For Labor, Race, and Liberty.
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Lessons from the first black person to run for president
Taylor’s run wasn't a failure. It was a blueprint. When you look at the 1904 platform, you see the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement and the modern progressive agenda.
If you’re a history buff or someone who cares about where our politics are going, here is how you can actually use this information:
- Check your sources: Next time you see a "History Fact" on social media about the first Black candidate, look for the distinction between a major party nominee and a national party nominee.
- Support local archives: Taylor’s story lived in the archives of small-town Wisconsin and Iowa. Supporting local historical societies keeps these "lost" stories alive.
- Broaden the narrative: When we talk about Black political history, we usually start with 1965. Taylor shows us that the fight for the presidency started sixty years before the Voting Rights Act.
George Edwin Taylor died in Florida in 1925. He didn't live to see a Black president. He didn't even live to see a Black person win a major party primary. But he was the one who cleared the brush. He was the first to stand up and say that the office of the President belonged to everyone.
Next time someone brings up the history of the White House, tell them about George. Tell them about the journalist from Wisconsin who decided that if no party would have him, he’d just start his own.
To dive deeper into this specific era, you should look up the records of the National Negro Liberty Party at the Library of Congress or find a copy of Bruce Mouser’s biography on Taylor. Understanding the 1904 election changes how you see every election that came after it.