OK, my last selection of reader contributions. This, from Izengabe:
In Philip K Dick’s brilliant novel The Crack in Space centers around Jim Briskin who is campaigning to be the 1st black president of the United States and his plan to solve Earth’s chronic overpopulation problem by sending people though a hole in space to colonizing a parallel alter-Earth that was found by Jifi-scuttler repairman.
And more sci-fi, from Britton W.:
Robert Heinlein wrote on [a black woman president] in “Over the Rainbow” in 1980. She was a Palin-like character who stepped in upon the death of the president.
Colin A. points out that columnist Ralph Peters’s 1990 novel entitled The War in 2020 also features a black president.
Paul D. alerted me to a Richard Pryor skit from his show in 1977 where he was the president conducting a press conference that, like everything else I’ve seen by Pryor, manages to be both unfunny and so chock full of stereotypes it might as well have been produced by the Klan.
Not to end on a sour note, Alec B. sent along a link about a 1964 comic book called “Treasure Chest,” published by the Catholic Guild for distribution to parochial schools, that featured a story line on black presidential candidate Tim Pettigrew (though the story line ended without saying whether he won, so technically it doesn’t qualify).