Frank R. Beckwith

Frank Roscoe Beckwith (December 11, 1904 – August 24, 1965) was an African American lawyer and civil rights activist. He was the first African American to run as a candidate for President of the United States in a major party primary. During his lifetime he became a successful attorney and civil rights activist.

A native of Indianapolis, Beckwith was born in 1904 to former slaves. He graduated from Arsenal Technical High School in 1921, and published the Indianapolis Tribune for a time in the 1920s. He joined the Republican party in 1928. In 1943 he gave a radio address, "The Negro Lawyer and the War," which was subsequently published in book form by the American Bar Association.

He competed in the 1964 Republican Presidential Primary in Indiana. He urged the Republican Party to "re-evaluate and strengthen its position with labor as well as minorities" and called attention to the denial of voting rights and persecution of African Americans in the South. Barry Goldwater won the Indiana Republican primary.

Prior to running for president, Beckwith ran unsuccessfully for the Indiana General Assembly and Indianapolis City-County Council.

In 1964 he married Dr. Robbie Collins Goolsby Ed. D., an educator, founding member and president of the Board of Directors of Martin University and recipient of the Sagamore of the Wabash Award (1985). He was earlier married to Mahala Ashley Dickerson, a lawyer from Mississippi, who became the first black female attorney in Indianapolis and the second in the state of Indiana.