By Don Valentine
The honorable Hiram Rhodes Revels became the first Black man elected to the US Senate in 1870. He was elected by the great state of Mississippi to fill the seat held by Jefferson Davis. Senator Davis vacated the seat when the south seceded from the Union to start the civil war in 1861. It was a weird twist of fate that a Black man after the war would take the seat held by the former President of the Confederacy.
Senator Revels, as chronicled by biography.com, “was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 27, 1827. Despite being born in the South in a time of widespread slavery, Revels was a member of a free family… inherited and ran a barber shop before leaving North Carolina to study at seminaries in Indiana and Ohio. In 1845, he was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, working as an itinerant preacher.” As a traveling minister he preached the gospel in Illinois, Ohio, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee. Senator Revels was a man of immense religious conviction. This commitment was detailed in blackpast.org, “He spent a brief time in jail in Missouri in 1854 for preaching to negroes.” At the start of the war, Senator Revels joined the Union Army in Maryland and became a chaplain.
After the war the country was in a disarray of colossal proportions. A functioning Congress was necessary to fulfill the Constitution, and that meant finding loyal Congressional members. The Black Senator was a stalwart member of the Republican party. He gained prominence for his oratory sermons, which helped him get elected to Alderman. The aberrant window to become a Black Senator was described by history.com, “On February 25, two days after Mississippi was granted representation in Congress for the first time since it seceded in 1861, Revels was sworn in. Although African American Republicans never obtained political office in proportion to their overwhelming electoral majority, Revels and some 15 other African American men served in Congress during Reconstruction…”
The press was effusive about his articulate speeches. The Senator spoke before the Senate, to urge a diplomatic crafting of Reconstruction. His passion was civil rights, including the integration of schools and equal opportunities for Black workers. His opposition in the party was noted in history.com, “…while the Radical Republicans in Congress called for harsh punishments to be meted out to Civil War rebels, Senator Revels took a milder view. He argued for the immediate restoration of citizenship to former Confederates, along with the secure enfranchisement, education and employment eligibility of African Americans.”
This history is not preserved in standard academic curriculum. Thankfully we have the Black Press to preserve “Our History.”
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