Happy Black History Month

By: Miriam Edelman

In honor of Black History Month, which occurs every February, DCNOW would like to highlight how the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) have led the way regarding African-American leadership. In 1976, President Gerald Ford became the first President to issue a statement recognizing this month. This piece follows up on DCNOW’s blog’s piece, entitled “Top Female Leaders of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia Make History.”

All of D.C.’s Mayors since D.C. gained limited home rule in the 1970s have been African-American. Unlike any state, D.C. elected an African-American female, in fact two of them, to its top leadership position.

Two of the just six African-American governors in U.S. history and two of the three African-Americans who were elected Governor have led in the DMV. In 1989, L. Douglas Wilder (D-VA) became the first African-American elected governor in the U.S. In 2022, Wes Moore (D-MD) was the third African-American to be elected governor in the U.S. and the first African-American to be elected governor in Maryland.

Maryland has had one African-American Lieutenant Governor, and Virginia has had two African-American Lieutenant Governors. When Michael Steele (R-MD) was elected Maryland’s first African-American Lieutenant Governor in 2002, he was the first African-American elected statewide in Maryland. At that time, he was the U.S.’s highest-ranking African-American Republican elected official and the nation’s only African-American Lieutenant Governor. In 1985, Wilder was elected Virginia’s first African-American Lieutenant Governor. In 2021, Winsome Earle-Sears was the first African-American woman to hold statewide office in Virginia when she became Virginia’s first African-American female Lieutenant Governor.

Unlike any state, D.C. has sent only African-Americans to Congress since it has had a nonvoting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1970s. The 1970 District of Columbia Delegate Act created this position. On March 23, 1971, Rev. Walter Fauntroy became D.C.’s first delegate in almost a century. He was replaced by current Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has served since January 3, 1991.

Maryland and Virginia both have elected African-Americans to Congress. After Virginia elected its first African-American Member of Congress in 1889, Maryland elected its first African-American Member of Congress in 1971. Maryland is just one of four states that elected an African-American female Senator, its current Senator Angela Alsobrooks. While Maryland has had seven African-American Representatives, Virginia has had four African-American Representatives.

When Alsobrooks took office in 2025, Maryland became the only state in U.S. history with African-Americans who were elected to two of the following top three positions at the same time: Governor and two U.S. Senators. The only other state to have African-Americans in two of those major roles concurrently was Massachusetts. On January 30, 2013, Massachusetts’ Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) appointed Mo Cowan (D-MA) to be interim U.S. Senator, replacing U.S Senator John Kerry. Cowan served in the U.S. Senate for fewer than six months between February 1, 2013, and July 15, 2013. Cowan did not run for election to his seat. As Moore and Alsobrooks have current positions for over a year, they are the longest-concurrently serving African-American Governor and U.S. Senate from the same state in U.S. history. Alsobrooks and Moore both helped each other in their respective history-making campaigns for their current offices. After Alsobrooks was the highest-profile elected official in Maryland to endorse Moore in his crowded primary campaign in 2022, Moore endorsed Alsobrooks in her primary campaign in 2023.

The D.C. Council currently is majority African-American and has been since 2021. Now, eight of the thirteen (constituting 61.5 percent) D.C. Councilmembers are African-Americans. Four At-Large D.C. Councilmembers are African-Americans. In the past, the D.C. Council also was composed primarily of African-Americans.

Three-quarters (six out of eight) of the D.C. Council Chairs, leaders of the D.C. Council, during the current limited Home Rule era from the swearing in of the first limited Home Rule-era in 1975 have been African-American. They led the D.C. Council for approximately half of the D.C. Council’s history. The African-American D.C. Council Chairs are Sterling Tucker, Arrington Dixon, John Wilson, Linda Cropp, Vincent Gray, and Kwame Brown. 

Maryland and Virginia currently have African-Americans in major leadership positions. For example, the current Speaker in Maryland is Afro-Latina Del. Joseline Peña-Melynk, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic, and Virginia’s Speaker is Don Scott.

Will more history be made in the DMV? Will Maryland or Virginia elect the nation’s first female African-American Governor? Will D.C. finally become a state and make that female leadership history?