QUESTIONS:
1. How many blacks have served in the U.S. Senate as Republicans?
2. How many blacks have served in the Senate as Democrats?
3. Who was the last black man to serve as governor of a state?
4. How many times in the 20th Century was a black candidate a major party nominee for governor of any state?
5. In the 20th Century, who was the first black to chair a committee in the House?
ANSWERS:
1. Three: Hiram Revels (1870-71) and Blanche Kelso Bruce (1875-81), both of Mississippi, and Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, who served from 1966-78.
2. One. Carol Moseley Braun, senator from Illinois from 1992-98.
3. Democrat Douglas Wilder, governor of Virginia from 1989-93.
4. Four times: Democrats Wilder of Virginia in 1989 and Tom Bradley of California in 1982 and ’86, and Republican William Lucas of Michigan in 1986.
5. Rep. William L. Dawson (D.-Ill.), chairman of the House Committee on Expenditures in Executive Departments from 1948-52 and then chairman of its successor committee, the House Committee on Government Operations, from 1954 until his death in 1970.
