<P> Major party African American candidates for President of the United States could not run in primaries until nearly the third quarter of the 20th century, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) opened up political participation to blacks in the South . In addition, party changes to give more weight to candidates' performance in primaries, rather than to party leaders' negotiation in secret, opened up the fields . In 2008, Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States, the first African American to win the office . </P> <P> This article is only about major party candidates who completed full campaigns . Third party candidates and those of major parties who dropped out of the primary process early, can be found at List of African American United States presidential and vice presidential candidates . </P> <P> In 1888 Frederick Douglass was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention . Afterward during the roll call vote, he received one vote, so was nominally a candidate for the presidency . In those years, the candidates for the presidency and vice presidency were chosen by state representatives voting at the nominating convention . Many decisions were made by negotiations of state and party leaders "behind closed doors ." Douglass was not a serious candidate in contemporary terms . </P> <P> In 1904, George Edwin Taylor was president of the National Negro Democratic League . Southern Democrats were enacting laws that disfranchised most Black voters and were imposing segregation through "Jim Crow" laws . Northern Democrats seemed unwilling and / or unable to control the excesses of their Southern parties . The National Negro Democratic League was fractured by the debate over the issue of linking the nation's currency to silver as well as to gold . By 1904, Taylor was positioned to abandon the party and bureau that he had led as president for two terms . It was not a good time to be a Black Democrat . It also was a time when lynching was creeping northward and when scientific racism was gaining acceptance within the nation's intellectual and scientific community (see Nadir of race relations). </P>

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