First Black Senator

First Black Senator

By Jasmis K. Williams


Hiram Rhodes Revels was born a free man in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1822. His father was of black, white and Lumbee (Native American) ancestry and his mother was an emancipated slave.

Young Hiram was tutored and, at 16, he went to Lincolnton, N.C., to work as an apprentice in his brother's barber shop. Three years later, his brother died, leaving Hiram to manage the shop.

Soon after, Hiram abandoned barbering for education. He studied in Indiana and Illinois. He also studied at a black seminary in Ohio. The ministry would be his calling.

Revels traveled extensively with his ministry through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Kansas before settling in Baltimore, Md., where he started a school for black children.

During the Civil War, Revels' ministering and recruitment skills were put to use. He helped organize two black regiments to fight for the Union. He also served as the Union chaplain.

After the war, Revels settled in Natchez, Miss., where he founded a new church. He earned respect among blacks and whites for his political activities, as well as for his ministering. In 1869, Revels was elected to represent Adams County in the Mississippi state Senate, although he had never before attended a political meeting, given a political speech - or even voted. Through hard work and strength of character, he was chosen in 1870 to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat that had been held by former Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

Revels' appointment was opposed by Southern Democrats, who used the Supreme Court's Dred Scott Decision to make a case that no black person was considered a U.S. citizen before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Revels had officially been a citizen for two years. The U.S. Senate required a minimum of nine years. Supporters argued that Revels had been a citizen all of his life.

Revels took his Senate seat, becoming the country's first African-American senator. One of his first acts was to implore his fellow senators to reinstate black legislators who had been unfairly ousted from the Georgia General Assembly. He served until March 4, 1871, the end of Davis' vacated term.

After his time in the Senate, Revels served as president of Alcorn College, the state's college for African-Americans, where he also taught philosophy. He was removed, though, for campaigning against Mississippi Gov. Adelbert Ames and the carpetbagger government. ''Carpetbagger'' was a derogatory term used to describe the throngs of reformers who came to the postwar South to help it readjust. While many did come to help newly freed ex-slaves and whites adjust to postwar life, others came to exploit the dire conditions in the South for personal gain.

Revels wrote a widely publicized letter to President Ulysses S. Grant, charging the government with inflaming wartime hatreds and manipulating the black vote. Despite his political activities, Revels remained true to his calling as a minister and taught theology at Shaw College (now Rust College) in Holly Springs, Miss.

Hiram Revels died on Jan. 16, 1901, in Aberdeen, Miss., while attending a church conference. During some of the nation's most turbulent times for African-Americans, Hiram Revels made political history, but never abandoned his faith or his people.