10 groundbreaking Black politicians you've probably never heard of

The 21st century has given us a lot of major Black politicians, including Barack Obama and Kamala Harris, who have broken through discrimination and biased expectations to show that politicians don't all have to come from the same background.

While these politicians deserve all the honor they have been given, there are a ton of groundbreaking politicians who have not gotten anywhere near the same kind of appreciation. This is largely because they aren't known about, as their contributions have been hidden or forgotten by history. Sadly, only a handful of African Americans have reached several government positions throughout the country's history, demonstrating that even when laws don't restrict political access, culture can.

Over the next ten slides, we cover ten Black men and women who broke down the barriers created to keep them out of politics. One thing worth noting is that, in many cases, these men and women had to either use light skin or a top-tier education as an entry point to being taken seriously in the political sphere. Only then were they allowed to provide representation to a huge portion of the US population.