Black labor leader and newspaper editor George Edwin Taylor becomes the first African American to run for U.S. President, running on the National Negro Liberty Party.

Black Populists, such as Walter A. Pattillo and John B. Rayner, work with white Populists to help to challenge Democratic Party rule in the South. Form the People’s Party. Their efforts culminate in electoral victories in North Carolina and eastern Texas within a few years.

Frederick Douglass joins independent political efforts to opposes the Democratic Party’s pro-slavery stance, including the extension of slavery to new territories. Supports the formation of the Republican Party, a third party coalition at the time.

African Americans, including black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, calling for the immediate abolition of slavery in the face of bipartisan opposition by the Democratic and Whig parties, establish the Liberty Party.