Black conservatism in the United States is a political and social movement rooted in African-American communities that aligns largely with the American conservative movement and is part of black conservatism around the world. It is often associated with the Christian right (per 2007 data). Black conservatism emphasizes social conservatism, traditionalism, patriotism, capitalism, and free markets.
During the Reconstruction era, many black voters supported the Republican Party, at that time a radical rather than conservative party. Booker T. Washington had a more conservative approach to politics in the United States while W. E. B. DuBois called for more radical change. Some African Americans supported Democrat Woodrow Wilson's first presidential campaign and felt betrayed by his policies once in office. Under Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, during his first two terms, civil rights legislation was not passed; however, New Deal programs led to the black vote becoming more split. In 1960, the Kennedy-Johnson campaign promoted civil rights as a central issue and during their administration, they passed anti-discrimination legislation, gaining the black vote. Since then, the Democratic Party has held a majority of the black votes in America. Pew Research Center polling has found that the majority of African-Americans who identify as Democratic declined in the 2010s, from 75% during Barack Obama's presidency to 67% in 2020. A 2017 sample size of 10,245 voters concluded that just 8% of African-Americans identify as Republican.
Influential black Republicans in the early 21st century who have held public office include U.S. Senator Tim Scott, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, and Cabinet secretaries Ben Carson, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell. Political commentators Candace Owens, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Armstrong Williams, Larry Elder, Walter Williams, and Jason L. Riley are influential figures in black conservatism.
One of the main characteristics of black conservatism is its emphasis on personal choice and responsibilities above socioeconomic status and institutional racism. Black conservatives typically support do-for-self, self reliance, and personal responsibility. Black conservatives tend to be self-critical of aspects of African-American culture that they believe have created poverty and dependency. John McWhorter's 2000 book ' and Bill Cosby's 2004 "Pound Cake speech" exemplified this critique, though their authors did not strictly come from the Black conservative movement.
In his book, The Content of Our Character, Shelby Steele offers an interpretation of the color-blind society ideology and why people should accept it. He claims that during slavery, black individuals were forced to cling to their black identities in order to build community and have since mistakenly clung to that same rhetoric under the impression that it is still the most valuable tool to excel. He argues that this is dangerous because it frames black individuals as victims and "pulls [blacks] into war-like defensiveness at a time where [sic] there is more opportunity for development than ever before." The idea was that if black individuals ceased to see themselves as victims of oppressive forces, then they could be seen as equals to their white counterparts. According to Steele, who grew up in a segregated society and experienced considerable racism, but who nevertheless criticized certain later policies as associating blackness with permanent inferiority: "I believe that freedom of the individual â as opposed to good works or "social justice" â is by far the highest goal any society can strive for. ... I became conservative when I realized that the era of protest was over. We blacks won everything we could win through protest â but it was an idea of what others must do for us, of how others must be moral and tolerant. Conservatism is the road ahead because it is an idea of what we can do for ourselves."
A 2007 Pew Research Center survey showed that 19% of Black Americans identified as Religious Right. In 2004, though, the Pew Research Center indicated only 7% of Black Americans identified as Republican.
A National Election Pool poll showed that support for California Proposition 8 (2008) (a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as an opposite-sex union) was strong among African-American voters; 70% of those interviewed in the exit pollâÂÂa higher percentage than any other racial groupâÂÂstated that they voted in favor of Proposition 8. Polls by both the Associated Press and CNN mirrored this data, reporting support among Black voters to be at 70% and 75%, respectively. African-American support was considered crucial to the Proposition's passage because African Americans made up an unusually large percentage of voters in 2008; the presence of African-American presidential candidate Barack Obama on the ballot was believed to have increased African-American voter turnout.
From Reconstruction up until the New Deal, the black population tended to vote Republican. During that period, the Republican PartyâÂÂparticularly in the Southern United StatesâÂÂwas seen as more racially progressive than the Democratic Party, primarily because of the role of the Southern wing of the Democratic Party as the party of racial segregation and the Republican Party's roots in the abolitionist movement (see Dixiecrats).
As the Republican party became more conservative, its association with African-American voters declined. Republican leader Herbert Hoover fired loyal African-Americans from positions within the Republican Party, in order to increase his appeal to Southern white voters. This can be considered an early example of a set of Republican Party methods that were later termed the Southern Strategy.
Blacks started to shift in significant numbers to the Democrats with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who received 70% of the African-American vote. Among Truman Administration officials, the publication of Henry Lee Moon's Balance of Power spurred Democratic partisan support for African-American constituencies. Dwight D. Eisenhower was able to win back some African-American voters for the Republican party, receiving 40% of the black vote. John F. Kennedy's rebranding of the Democrats in 1960, including his embrace of civil rights, cemented the popularity of the party with African-Americans.
While in 1960, a third of African-Americans still supported the Republicans, the Barry Goldwater 1964 presidential campaign, which signalled the party's turn to conservatism, was based on a rejection of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and led to rapid departure of most of the remaining third. "The 1964 election marked a watershed for African Americans and the GOP, with black Republican support now falling to around 10%."
According to NPRâÂÂs Code Switch, Black conservatism as a movement emerged in the 1970s as a response to this: "Through an influential network of African-American conservative scholars and experts that emerged in the late 1970s, the Republicans sought to educate middle and upper blacks about the benefits of free-market socioeconomic policies... [The] African-American community perceived the new wave of black political conservatism not as an organic ideology that appeared at the grassroots level, but as a model imposed from above of the desired interracial relations in the country, from the point of view of white Americans."
After the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Republican President George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to the court. Thomas has been one of the most vocal conservatives and originalists on the court.
Alan Keyes became the first African-American candidate to run in the Republican presidential primaries in 1996, but he did not win any state's primary or caucus. Keyes ran for president again in 2000 and in 2008.
Also in the 1990s, J.C. Watts and Gary Franks were elected to Congress.
In the George W. Bush Administration, there were many prominent African-American figures. Colin Powell served as United States Secretary of State from 2001-2005, being the first Black American to hold the office, and was the highest-ranking Black American in the federal executive branch in American history. Condoleezza Rice served as United States National Security Advisor from 2001-2005 and as the United States Secretary of State from 2005-2009. Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state and the first woman to serve as national security advisor. Alphonso Jackson served as the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 2004-2008. Rod Paige served as the United States Secretary of Education from 2001-2005. He was the first African American to serve in that position.
In 2009, Michael Steele became the first black man to chair the Republican National Committee. In 2010, Allen West and Tim Scott were elected to the United States House of Representatives. Then in 2013, Scott was appointed to the United States Senate. He is the first African-American senator in the Southern United States to be directly elected, the longest-serving African-American senator in U.S. history, the first African-American to serve in both the House and Senate, and the first African-American senator to chair a full committee.
In 2011, Herman Cain, a "Tea Party" Republican staged a run for the presidency in 2012. He received a brief surge of attention and popularity but withdrew before any primaries were held.
Neurosurgeon Ben Carson ran for the Republican nomination in the 2016 election, launching his campaign in his hometown Detroit in May 2015. He polled well for a time in late 2015, but withdrew after the first Super Tuesday. Carson received 857,039 votes during the Republican primaries; this total represented 2.75% of the votes cast. He was supported by seven delegates at the Republican National Convention. After Donald Trump won the 2016 Presidential election, Trump appointed Carson to serve as the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
In 2014, Will Hurd and Mia Love were elected to the United States House of Representatives. Love was the first Haitian American elected to Congress and the first Republican Black woman elected to Congress. Businessman and veteran John James unsuccessfully ran in 2018 and in 2020 for the United States Senate. In the 2020, Burgess Owens and Byron Donalds were elected to the United States House of Representatives. In 2022, John James and Wesley Hunt were elected to the United States House of Representatives.
Former professional football player Herschel Walker unsuccessfully ran in the 2022 United States Senate election in Georgia. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron unsuccessfully ran in the 2023 Kentucky gubernatorial election.
In the 2024 United States Presidential election, U.S. Senator Tim Scott, former U.S. Representative Will Hurd, and political commentator Larry Elder all declared their candidacy. All three withdrew before the primaries took place.
In the Second Trump Administration, former member of the Texas House of Representatives Scott Turner has served as the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Virginia lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears unsuccessfully ran in the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial election. Daniel Cameron is currently running in the 2026 United States Senate election in Kentucky. Byron Donalds is currently running in the 2026 Florida gubernatorial election. John James is currently running in the 2026 Michigan gubernatorial election. Lisa Demuth is currently running in the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial election.
This is a list of African-American conservative politicians.