Hiram Revels
(1834-1892)
“I find that the prejudice in this country to color is very great, and I sometimes fear that it is on the increase. . . . If the nation should take a step for the encouragement of this prejudice against the colored race, can they have any grounds upon which to predicate a hope that Heaven will smile upon them and prosper them?”
—U.S. Senator Hiram Revels (1827-1901).
More Online Resources
Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 1 by James Gillespie Blaine
Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 by James Gillespie Blaine
Hiram Revels: Godly Black Legislator
The first Black to serve in the U.S. Congress was Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) of Mississippi (Republican). He had been born free in North Carolina and became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He established a school for freedmen in St. Louis, Missouri. After the outbreak of the Civil War, he assisted in recruiting Blacks into the military and served as a chaplain.
After the war was over, Revels was serving as a state senator from Mississippi when he was chosen to fill the unexpired term for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Albert Brown before Mississippi seceded from the Union. The other senate seat had been held by Jefferson Davis, who became president of the Confederacy.
One of Revel’s colleagues, John Lynch, the first Black speaker of the House in Mississippi and a member of the U. S. House of Representatives, wrote in The Facts of Reconstruction about the power of Revel’s prayer opening the Mississippi legislature in January 1870:
“That prayer,—one of the most impressive and eloquent prayers that had ever been delivered in the Senate Chamber,—made Revels a United States Senator. He made a profound impression upon all who heard him. It impressed those who heard it that Revels was not only a man of great natural ability but that he was also a man of superior attainments.”
Library of Congress information:
Group portrait of Black American legislators: Robert C. De Large, Jefferson H. Long, H.R. Revels, Benj. S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. Rainy, and R. Brown Elliot.
MEDIUM: 1 print : lithograph ; 28.6 x 37.7 cm (sheet)
New York : Published by Currier & Ives, 1872.
Stories about Hiram Revels
Senator James Blaine of Maine (1830-1893), who was White, wrote in his book Twenty Years of Congress about the character of his Black colleagues who came into office during Reconstruction:
“The colored men who took seats in both Senate and House did not appear ignorant or helpless. They were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct—as illustrated by Mr. Revels and Mr. Bruce in the Senate, and by Mr. Rapier, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Rainey in the House—would be honorable to any race. Coals of fire were heaped on the heads of all their enemies when the colored men in Congress heartily joined in removing the disabilities of those who had before been their oppressors, and who, with deep regret be it said, have continued to treat them with injustice and ignominy.”
Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 by James Gillespie Blaine
