Scott is obviously not the first Black person to vie for the Republican presidential nomination.
That distinction goes to Frederick Douglass, who received one vote at the 1888 Republican convention.
Alan Keyes ran for the Republican nomination in 1996, 2000 and 2008; Herman Cain ran and withdrew in 2011; and Ben Carson ran in 2016.
Tim Scott, however, would be the first Black Republican officeholder to run for the party’s presidential nomination, should he move past the exploratory phase.
Even then, there were few Black people elected to national office, with a total of eight serving between 1914 and 1965.