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Friday July 25th 2008 |
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Friday July 25th 2008 |
a non-profit education organization | |
September 27
From Fayetteville, North Carolina, he was born free yet as child all Blacks in the South, free or slaves, were forbidden to learn to read and write. Revels was secretly taught these basics by a free Black woman. When he was 15, his family moved to Lincointon, North Carolina where Revels worked as a barber. In 1844, he moved to Indiana (a free state) and began studying at Beech Grove Seminary, a Quaker school. At this time Revels became involved with the teachings of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, a significant religious and educational force in the Black community. In 1845, Revels began studying for the ministry in Drake County, Ohio; was ordained as a minister of the AME Church later that year and an elder in 1849. As an itinerant preacher, Revels was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854, for preaching the gospel to Negroes. In the early 1850's, Revels married Phoeba A. Bass together they raised six daughters. He attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois and in 1857 became a minister became principal of an African American high school in Baltimore, Maryland. When the Civil War started Revels helped organize Union regiments and recruit soldiers of the first colored regiment in Maryland. He established a school for freedmen in St. Louis, Missouri in 1863 and worked with the U. S. Provost Marshall to handle the affairs of ex-slaves. In 1865, Revels joined the Methodist Episcopal (EM) Church, which offered more opportunities for his work in the South. After the Civil War, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 required the Southern states to write new constitutions permitting African Americans to vote and hold public office. They had to ratify the Fourteenth amendment, and on July 28, 1868, African Americans were officially recognized as citizens of the United States. Later that year Revels was appointed for a term on the Natchez city Board of Aldermen. During the first session of the Mississippi legislature in January of 1868, Revels was asked to open the session with a prayer. According to John R. Lynch, "That prayer was one of the more 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." In 1869, Lynch, a Black political figure from Natchez, encouraged him to enter as a candidate for state senator, representing Adams County. Revels accepted the nomination at the Republican caucus in December 1869. In January 1870, Mississippi elected Hiram Revels as a U. S. senator. Mississippi was readmitted to the Union, but the New York Herald predicted that Revels would never be allowed to take his Senate seat. But finally he was seated on February 25, 1870 and held the office until March 3, 1871, becoming the first African American U. S. senator. During Revels' short tenure, he introduced several bills, presented a number of petitions, and served on the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Education. After his term in the senate, Revels became president of Alcorn College from 1871 to 1873. He then reentered the ministry as the pastor of the Holly Springs, Mississippi ME church. In 1876, he came back to Alcorn College until 1882; then teaching theology at Rust University in Holly Springs. On January 16, 1901, Revels died of a stroke. Reference: Black Americans In Congress 1870-1989. Bruce A. Ragsdale & Joel D. Treese U.S. Government Printing Office Raymond W. Smock, historian and director 1990 E185.96.R25 to be a Politician
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The African American Registry®, The African American Registry® Copyright 2005, 2006
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