Timeline of African-American firsts

16th century

1500s

1528

• Estevanico becomes the first black person to explore what would become the continental United States in the Narváez expedition.

  1539

• Estevanico becomes the first black person and first non-Native American person to explore New Mexico.

  17th century

1600s

1604

• First black person to arrive in what is now Maine: explorer and interpreter Mathieu Da Costa

  1624

• First African American who was born in the British colonies that later became the United States: William Tucker

  1650

• First African American to own land in the United States July 24, 1651: Anthony Johnson

  1670s

1670

• First African American to own land in Boston: Zipporah Potter Atkins

  18th century

1730s–1770s

1738

• First free African-American community: Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose in Spanish Florida

  1746

• First known enslaved African American person to compose a work of literature: Lucy Terry with her poem "Bars Fight", composed in 1746 and first published in 1855 in Josiah Holland's History of Western Massachusetts.

  1760

• First known African-American published author: Jupiter Hammon

  1767

• First African-American clockmaker, Peter Hill, was born.

  1768

• First known African American to be elected to public office: Wentworth Cheswill, town constable and justice of the peace in Newmarket, New Hampshire.

  1773

• First known African-American woman to publish a book: Phillis Wheatley
• First separate African-American church: Silver Bluff Baptist Church, Aiken County, South Carolina

  1775

• First African American to join the Freemasons: Prince Hall

  1778

• First African-American U.S. military regiment: the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

  1780s–1790s

1783

• First African American to formally practice medicine: James Derham, who did not hold an M.D. degree.

  1785

• First African American ordained as a Christian minister in the United States: Rev. Lemuel Haynes. He was ordained in the Congregational Church, which became the United Church of Christ

  1792

• First major African-American Back-to-Africa movement: 3,000 Black Loyalist slaves, who had escaped to British lines during the American Revolutionary War for the promise of freedom, were relocated to Nova Scotia and given land. Later, 1,200 chose to migrate to West Africa and settle in the new British colony of Settler Town, which is present-day Sierra Leone.

  1794

• First African Episcopal Church established: Absalom Jones founded African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• First African Methodist Episcopal Church founded: Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, Philadelphia, was founded by Richard Allen

  1799

• First African American to attend college : John Chavis; later went on to be a preacher and educator for both black and white students.

  19th century

1800s

1804

• First African American ordained as an Episcopal priest: Absalom Jones in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

  1807

• First African-American Presbyterian Church in America: founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by John Gloucester a former slave.

  1810s

1816

• Richard Allen founded the first fully independent African-American denomination: African Methodist Episcopal Church, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and mid-Atlantic states

  1817

• The First African Baptist Church was the first African-American church west of the Mississippi River. It had its beginnings in 1817 when John Mason Peck and the formerly enslaved John Berry Meachum began holding church services for African Americans in St. Louis. Meachum founded the First African Baptist Church in 1827. Although there were ordinances preventing blacks from assembling, the congregation grew from 14 people at its founding to 220 people by 1829. Two hundred of the parishioners were slaves, who could only travel to the church and attend services with the permission of their owners.

  1820s

1821

• First African American to hold a patent: Thomas L. Jennings, for a dry-cleaning process
• First African American theatre, the African Grove Theatre, was founded in New York City by: William Alexander Brown

  1822

• First African-American captain to sail a whaleship with an all-black crew: Absalom Boston There were six black owners of seven whaling trips before Absalom Boston's in 1822.

  1823

• First African American to receive a degree from an American college: Alexander Twilight, Middlebury College

  1826

• First African American to graduate from Bowdoin College: Future governor of the Republic of Maryland, John Brown Russwurm
• First African American to graduate from Amherst College: Edward Jones

  1827

• First African-American-owned-and-operated newspaper: Freedom's Journal, founded in New York City by Rev. Peter Williams Jr., Samuel Cornish, John Brown Russwurm and other free blacks

  1828

• First African American to graduate from Dartmouth College: Edward Mitchell

  1829

• First African American to attend Princeton Theological Seminary and graduate: Theodore S. Wright

  1830s

1832

• First governor of African descent in what is now the United States: Pío Pico, an Afro-Mexican, was the last governor of Alta California before it was ceded to the U.S. Like all Californios, Pico automatically became a U.S. citizen in 1848.

  1836

• First African American elected to serve in a state legislature: Alexander Twilight, Vermont
• First African American to found a town and establish a planned community: Free Frank McWorter
• First African American governor of the Republic of Maryland or any other colony in Africa: John Brown Russwurm

  1837

• First formally trained African-American medical doctor: Dr James McCune Smith of New York City, who was educated at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and returned to practice in New York.

  1840s

1844

• First African American approved to practice law: Macon Bolling Allen from the bar association of Portland, Maine

  1845

• First African American to practice law: Macon Bolling Allen from the Boston bar

  1847

• First African American to graduate from a U.S. medical school: Dr. David J. Peck

  1848

• First African-American president of any nation: Joseph Jenkins Roberts, Liberia

  1849

• First African-American college professor at a predominantly white institution: Charles L. Reason, New York Central College

  1850s

1850

• First African-American woman to graduate from a college : Lucy Stanton

  1851

• First African-American member of the Society of Jesus : Patrick Francis Healy

  1853

• First novel published by an African American: Clotel; or, The President's Daughter, by William Wells Brown, then living in London.
• First African American to build and serve as captain of his own ship: Joseph P. Taylor of Portland, Maine

  1854

• First African-American Catholic priest: James Augustine Healy
• First institute of higher learning created to educate African-Americans: Ashmun Institute in Pennsylvania, renamed Lincoln University in 1866.
• First African-American physician to be admitted as a member of a medical society in the United States : John van Salee de Grasse

  1858

• First published play by an African American: The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom by William Wells Brown
• First African-American woman college instructor: Sarah Jane Woodson Early, Wilberforce University
• First African-American woman to graduate from a medical course of study at an American university: Sarah Mapps Douglass
• First African-American Missionary Bishop of Liberia: Francis Burns of Windham, New York; of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

  1860s

1861

• First North American military unit with African-American officers: 1st Louisiana Native Guard of the Confederate Army
• First African-American US federal government civil servant: William Cooper Nell

  1862

• First African-American woman to earn a B.A.: Mary Jane Patterson, Oberlin College
• First recognized U.S. Army African-American combat unit: 1st South Carolina Volunteers

  1863

• First college owned and operated by African Americans: Wilberforce University in Ohio
• First African-American president of a college: Bishop Daniel Payne
• First African-American physician to hold a commission in the U.S. Army and the first African-American hospital administrator when appointed to lead Freedman's Hospital in Washington D.C.: Alexander Thomas Augusta
• First African-American chaplain in the United States Colored Troops: Henry McNeal Turner
• First African American to earn the Medal of Honor: William Harvey Carney