Robert James Harlan (December 12, 1816 – September 21, 1897) was a civil rights activist and politician in Cincinnati, Ohio in the 1870s-1890s. He was born a slave but was allowed free movement and employment on the plantation of Kentucky politician James Harlan, who raised him and may have been his father or half-brother. He became interested in horse racing as a young man and moved to California during the 1849 Gold Rush where he was very successful. In 1859 he moved to England to import racehorses from America and race them in England. He returned to the United States in 1869 during reconstruction. He became friends with Ulysses S. Grant and became involved in Republican politics. For the rest of his life, he was involved in city, state, and national African-American civil rights and political movements. In 1870 he became colonel of the Second Ohio Militia Battalion, a black state militia battalion in Cincinnati. In 1886, he became a member of the Ohio House of Representatives.