August 4, 1857

George Edwin Taylor was born in Little Rock (Pulaski County), one of twelve children of a slave and a free black woman. Taylor was the first African-American standard-bearer of a national political party to run for the office of president of the United States. Taylor’s candidacy for president as a member of the National Negro Liberty Party in 1904 reflected the enormous trauma then facing African-American voters who were witnessing the systematic and thorough disfranchisement of their race in Southern states and the imposition of Jim Crow laws and segregation. The Liberty Party’s platform supported pensions for ex-slaves, independence for Puerto Ricans and Filipinos, and representation for voters in the District of Columbia. It also condemned disfranchisement efforts then sweeping the South, including Arkansas.