Ohio Black Republicans Association

		EDUCATION

The Education section of this web site references factual information as well as editorial comments that do not necessarily represent the views of Ohio Black Republicans Association. Pictured below, along with their descriptions, is a partial representation of the many noteworthy Republicans who have made significant contributions to our state and the nation.

Ohio boasts a rich history of accomplishments which have impacted the state, our nation and African Americans, in particular. To its historical credit, Ohio played a major role in facilitating the Underground Railroad, served as home state to 8 U. S. Presidents and, most recently, experienced the historic election of the nation's first African American female Lieutenant Governor, and candidacy of the first African American in a major Ohio party to run for Governor and Chairman of the RNC.

J. Kenneth Blackwell

He was the first African-American candidate of a major party in Ohio to run for the office of Governor and Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee. He served as Treasurer of State of Ohio (1994-1998) and Secretary of State of Ohio (1998-2002, 2002-2006). Blackwell, who is a conservative, also successfully campaigned for the 2004 State Constitutional Amendment banning state recognition of same gender marriage. Blackwell has an expansive career. Click here for a biography of J. Kenneth Blackwell.

Judge Sara J. Harper

Judge Harper (ret.) is the first African American female to graduate from Case Western Reserve University of Law School, the first female to serve on the judiciary of the U. S. Marine Corps Reserve, and to co-found the first victims' rights program in the nation. Click here to learn more ...

Timeline of African-American Republican History

1862 - Lincoln is the first president to meet with a group of Black leaders

1864 - The Republican National Convention makes the abolition of slavery a plank in its platform

1868 - Oscar J. Dunn becomes Lieutenant Governor in Louisiana

1870 - Hiram R. Revels becomes the first African American Senator; elected to fill US Senate seat formerly held by Jefferson Davis
- Joseph H. Rainey, South Carolina, becomes the first African - American Congressman
- Alonzo J. Ransier is elected to the US Congress

1875 - Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi becomes the first African-American elected to a full term in US Senate

1884 - John R. Lynch is the frist African-American to preside over the Republican National Convention; gives the keynote address

1954 - President Eisenhower appoints J. Ernest Wilkins as Assistant Secretary of Labor

1960 - Jackie Robinson, the first black Major League Baseball player, endorses Nixon for President

1966 - Edward Brooks (MA) is the first African-American elected to US Senate by popular vote

1968 - Arthur A. Fletcher is appointed Assistant Secretary of Labor; he will be a candidate for Chairman of the Republican National Committee in '76 and appointed Chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights in '90

1975 - President Ford appoints William T. Coleman Secretary of Transportation

1981 - President Reagan appoints Clarence Pendleton Jr. as Chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission

1982 - President Reagan appoints Clarence Thomas as Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

1989 - President Bush appoints Louis Sullivan as Secretary of Health and Human Services
- President Bush appoints General Colin Powell as Chair of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff
- President Bush appoint Condoleeza Rice as Director of Soviet and Eastern European affairs with the National Security Council

1991 - President Bush appoints Clarence Thomas to US Supreme Court

1998 - House of Representative elects J.C. Watts (OK) to be Chairman of the House of Representatives

2001 - President George W. Bush appoints General Colin Powell as the Secretary of State; Roderick R. Page as the Secretary of Education; Condoleezza Rice as Advisor of the National Security Council; Claude Allen as the Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services

2002 - For the first time in history, Black Republicans hold the Lieutenant Governor position in two states at the same time, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele (MD) and Lt. Gov. Jeanette Bradley (OH); six African Americans were elected to state-wide offices

2004 - President George W. Bush appoints Alphonso Jackson as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development

2009 - Republican National Committee chooses first black Chairman, Michael S. Steele, former Maryland Lt. Gov.

The African American Registry

Click on the link above to access the largest African American History Website in the world. The African American Registry is a nonprofit education organization.

Jennette B. Bradley

She served as Ohio Governor Bob Taft's running mate and made history when she became the first African-American female Lieutenant Governor in the nation. She was elected to office in November 2002 and served until 2005 as Lt. Governor and Director of the Ohio Department of Commerce. Gov. Taft, subsequently, appointed her to become Ohio's 45th Treasurer of State which she served until the end of 2006. Click here for a biography of Jennette B. Bradley.

George Washington Williams

He was the first black member of the Ohio state legislature (1880-1881, 64th General Assembly). He also wrote the first comprehensive history of African Americans from their own point of view. Besides being an historian, he was a late 19th Century journalist, lawyer and minister. Click here to learn more about this Republican legislator from Hamilton County.

John Patterson Green

John Patterson Green, a Republican, is known to many as the 'Father of Labor Day.' He was the first African American elected to serve in public office in Cleveland and later served three consecutive terms in the Ohio General Assembly, two in the Ohio House and one in the Ohio Senate (where he also made history as the first African American elected to that body). During his second term, Green introduced a bill declaring Labor Day as an official state holiday, and Congress later followed suit by declaring it a national holiday in 1894. Click here to learn more about this historic legislator.

Sojourner Truth

Truth (1797-1883), whose real name was Isabella Baumfree, was a slave, abolitionist, preacher and advocate of women's rights. She gave her famous speech, "Ain't I a Woman," in Akron, Ohio at the 1851 Convention of Women's Rights. She met with Abraham Lincoln at the Whitehouse in 1864. Click Here to learn more ...

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln, 16th President of the United States (1861-1865) built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Lincoln called for the Republican Party to embrace as its platform a call for Constitutional emancipation as a step towards actual freedom for slaves. The end result was the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in1865. Click here to learn more about President Lincoln. Click here to read the Emancipation Proclamation. Click here to read the 13th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.

Frederick Douglass

Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, in 1818, Douglass was an orator, editor, abolitionist and champion of Civil and Women's Rights. Douglass conferred with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern blacks for the Union Army. He was the first African American to hold a high ranking office in the U. S. government. ... More

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, served two terms in office from 1981-1988. His Republican administration focused on cutting taxes, lessening people's reliance on government and increasing national defense. Though some dispute it, blacks made significant gains during his presidency. Click here for a biography of Ronald Reagan. Click here for one of many commentaries on the Reagan Presidency.

George Walker Bush

He is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America, originally inaugurated on January 20, 2001. Bush was elected president in the 2000 presidential election and re-elected in the 2004 presidential election. He previously served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, and is the eldest son of former United States president George H. W. Bush... more

Dr. Condoleezza Rice

She became Secretary of State on January 26, 2005. Prior to this, she was the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor, since January, 2001... more

Colin L. Powell

Gen. Powell, the first African American Secretary of State, was sworn in by President George W. Bush on January 20, 2001 and served until 2005. He also was the first African American and youngest to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1989-1993). Click here to learn more.

Clarence Thomas

He is an American jurist and has been an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 1991. Justice Thomas is the second African American to serve on the nation's highest court, after Justice Thurgood Marshall. His career in the Supreme Court has seen him take a conservative approach to cases while adhering to the postulates of originalism ... more