The nine Black congressmen and Sen. Edward W. Brooke topped the previous high of eight in the Forty-fourth Congress of 1875-77. The first Black woman representative, Shirley Chisholm of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, defeated former CORE director James Farmer, in New York’s Twelfth Congressional critics and reelected Adam Clayton Powell Jr. In addition to Powell, the following incumbents were reelected William L. Dawson (Ill.), Charles C. Diggs (Mich.), Augustus Hawkins (Cali.), Robert N.C. Nix (Pa.) and John Conyers (Mich.) Elected to Congress for the first time were Mrs. Chisholm, Louis Stokes (Ohio) and William L. Clay (Mo.) blackfacts.com

1974 – George Brown was elected Lt Governor of Colorado, becoming one of the first two Black Lt Governors in the USA blacksfact.com

1974 – Walter E. Washington, became the first elected mayor of Washington, D.C., in the twentieth century. blackfacts.com

1974 – Harold Ford of Memphis elected to House of Representatives. blackfacts.com

1974 – State Sen. Mervyn M. Dymally elected lieutenant governor of California. State Sen. Georgia L. Brown elected lieutenant governor of Colorado. blackfacts.com

1974 – Shirley Chisholm, a New York Democrat, is the 1st African American woman elected to Congress.