A forgotten Black US Presidential candidate from 1904

Unlike what most people think, Shirley Chisholm was not in 1972 the first black candidate to run for president of the United States.

A journalist, Taylor gained distinction, according to the Tacoma, Washington Times on Aug. 17, 1904, as a leader in the Republican national convention of 1892, "to which he was an alternate delegate-at-large from his state. The next campaign he was delegate-at-large to the Democratic convention."

In 1904, 36 states sent representatives to the Liberty Party convention. According to the Times, the party denounced the Democrats' disenfranchisement of black Americans. It questioned Theodore Roosevelt's fidelity to African-Americans and it stood for "unqualified enforcement of the constitution," reparations for ex-slaves and independence for the Philippines.

Son Of A Slave

Taylor was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in August 1857, to Amanda Hines, a free African American woman. He later reported that his father was Nathan Taylor, a slave. Hines was forced to leave Arkansas in 1859 as a consequence of a new law that required all free African Americans to leave the state by January 1, 1860, or be sold as slaves. Hines died in Alton, Illinois, in 1861 or 1862, and young George was forced to live in “dry goods boxes” and fend for himself until 1865 when he arrived in La Crosse, Wisconsin

He attended the Baptist Academy at Beaver Dam, in Wisconsin but he left school within a year of graduating.

Becoming A Journalist

To support himself, The Times reported, Taylor took a job as a newspaper reporter in La Crosse. He eventually became editor of the La Crosse Evening Star.

In the 1880s, according to the Murphy Library at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Taylor was a key player in both Wisconsin's People's Party and the Union Labor Party. "His Wisconsin Labor Advocate was the voice of Wisconsin's labour party in 1886-1887," the library explains. "From 1891 to 1910, Taylor lived in Oskaloosa and Ottumwa, Iowa, where he published a national magazine called the Negro Solicitor. During this period he rose to prominence in national black politics, acting as president of the National Colored Men's Protective Association and the National Negro Democratic League and served high office in various other black organizations."

Running For Presidency

He kicked off his campaign in Iowa in 1904. The period during which he ran has often been called the nadir of race relations in the US.

Lynchings were common, distrust was high, and the Ku Klux Klan would eventually receive a massive recruitment boost from the 1915 D.W. Griffith film Birth of a Nation.

In spite of the hostile climate, Taylor made himself the candidate for the National Negro Liberty Party. He then battled to get as many votes as he could in a country crawling with racism. Taylor’s historical candidacy netted a mere 2,000 votes. For a black man in 1904, with no funding whatsoever, that was still one heck of an achievement.