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Senate Years of Service: 1870-1871 Party: Republican
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| Library of Congress
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REVELS, Hiram Rhodes, a Senator from Mississippi; born in Fayetteville, Cumberland County,
N.C., on September 27, 1827; attended Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty,
Ind., Darke County Seminary in Ohio, and Knox College, Galesburg, Ill.; barber;
ordained a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church at Baltimore,
Md., in 1845; carried on religious work in Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and Missouri; accepted a pastorate in Baltimore, Md., in 1860; at
the outbreak of the Civil War assisted in recruiting two regiments of African
American troops in Maryland; served in Vicksburg, Miss., as chaplain of a Negro
regiment, and organized African American churches in that State; established a
school for freedmen in St. Louis, Mo., in 1863; after the war, served in
churches in Kansas, Kentucky and Louisiana before settling in Natchez, Miss.,
in 1866; elected alderman in 1868; member, Mississippi state senate 1870;
elected as a Republican to the United States Senate; presented his credentials
upon the readmission of Mississippi to representation on February 23, 1870;
took the oath of office on February 25, 1870, after the Senate resolved a
challenge to his credentials, and served from February 23, 1870, until March 3,
1871; first African American Senator; secretary of state ad interim of
Mississippi in 1873; president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College
(formerly Oakland College, now Alcorn State University), Rodney, Miss.,
1871-1874, 1876-1882; moved to Holly Springs, Marshall County, Miss., and
continued his religious work; editor, Southwestern Christian Advocate, official
newspaper of A.M.E. Church 1876-1882; in retirement after 1882, taught theology
at Shaw University, Holly Springs, Miss.; died from a paralytic stroke in
Aberdeen, Miss., January 16, 1901; interment in Hill Crest Cemetery, Holly
Springs, Miss.
Bibliography
American National Biography;
Dictionary of American Biography; Office of History and
Preservation, Office of the Clerk,
Black Americans in Congress, 1870–2007. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008; Libby, Billy W. Senator Hiram
Revels of Mississippi Takes His Seat, January-February, 1870.
Journal of Mississippi History 37 (November 1975): 381-94;
Thompson, Julius.
Hiram R. Revels, 1827-1901: A Biography. New York: Arno Press,
1982.
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