African-American officeholders in the United States, 1789–1866

• Wentworth Cheswell first served in an elective office in 1776 as a local school board member in Newmarket, New Hampshire. He would serve in elective office until his death in 1817.
• Alexander Lucius Twilight was an American educator, politician, and minister. He was the first African American to earn a college degree from an American College at Middlebury College in 1823. He is the first African American elected to serve in a state legislature. He was elected to the Vermont House of Representatives in 1836. Twilight was also a minister and secondary school principal, building Athenian Hall at the Orleans County Grammar Schools.
• John Mercer Langston
• Edward Garrison Walker
• Charles Lewis Mitchell was one of two African Americans to be elected as a state legislator in Massachusetts in 1866. The other state legislator was Edward G. Walker. He served a one-year term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. During the American Civil War he served in the 55th Massachusetts Colored Volunteer Infantry and lost a foot during the Battle of Honey Hill.

  List of African-American officeholders of the United States, 1789–1866

Federal government

• African Americans in the United States Congress
• *List of African-American United States Representatives
• *List of African-American United States Senators
• *Congressional Black Caucus
• *Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
• List of African-American United States Cabinet Secretaries
• List of African-American officeholders during Reconstruction

  State and local government

• List of African-American U.S. state firsts
• List of first African-American mayors