I thought about this after looking at the census on this map. The only black governor for a long time was Pinchback in Lousiana. But assuming the map is correct, South Carolina and Mississippi had a larger black population than white population. Were there any movements at the time for black governors or other state wide offices?
One of the biggest reasons for this is that while the population of blacks in the South may have been greater than whites, blacks were by and large discouraged from voting through threats and intimidation^1 if not entirely disenfranchised by the implementation of literacy tests to determine voter eligibility.
It wasn't until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that literacy tests were deemed illegal^2.
It's still rare to see today (there have only been 4 black governors in the history of the United States) for the following reasons^3:
“‘Representing a primarily black constituency sets you on a political path that makes it hard to recalibrate for a statewide race,’ said Artur Davis, a former Alabama congressman who lost a bid for governor in 2010, and has since left the Democratic Party.”
“Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison, a Democrat now in his fourth term, cites money as an impediment. ‘As long as minority congressional members represent districts that tend to be lower income, then your funding base is going to be smaller, which will put you at a dollar disadvantage when you want to run for statewide office,’ he said.”
