Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first Black person to sit in Congress, took the oath of office and became a U.S. senator on this day in 1870 after serving a year in the Mississippi State Senate. A Republican from Natchez, Miss., he was a minister who had helped recruit Black soldiers for the Union during the Civil War and served himself as a Union army chaplain in Mississippi.
The first Reconstruction Act was passed by Congress in 1867, splitting the South into various military districts and outlining how Southern states could rejoin the Union. When Mississippi was again granted representation in Congress in 1870, Revels was chosen as one of its two senators by a vote in the state legislature, alongside other Republicans who swept elected offices across the South thanks to a coalition of Black people who now had the right to vote and their political allies.
He was one of 16 Black men who served in Congress during the Reconstruction era, with hundreds serving at the state and local levels. He finished his term in 1871 (he'd been elected to finish the term of another senator who had withdrawn from the Senate when Mississippi seceded). He then went on to serve as Mississippi's Secretary of State from 1872-1873. He passed away in 1801 at the age of 73.
You can learn more about Revels on History.com.
