What is Hiram Revels best known for?
Republican Party Hiram Rhodes Revels, (born September 27, 1827, Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.—died January 16, 1901, Aberdeen, Mississippi), American clergyman, educator, and politician who became the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate (1870–71), representing Mississippi during Reconstruction.
What did James Revels die of?
On Jan. 16, 1901, Revels died of a stroke in Aberdeen, Miss. He was in town for a church conference. He was 73. In death, Revels continues to be remembered as a trailblazer. Just nine African Americans, including Barack Obama, have won election as U.S. senators since Revels' time in office.
Was Hiram Revels elected to the Senate?
Letter dated January 25, 1870 from the Governor of the State of Mississippi and the Secretary of State of Mississippi that certified the election of Hiram Revels to the United States Senate.
What did William Revels argue for?
He argued for the immediate restoration of citizenship to former Confederates, along with the secure enfranchisement, education and employment eligibility of African Americans. Revels resigned from the Senate after a year to accept the presidency of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, located in Claiborne County, Mississippi.
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When did Hiram Revels die?
January 16, 1901Hiram Rhodes Revels / Date of deathHiram Revels died on January 16, 1901, while attending a church conference in Aberdeen, Mississippi. He was buried at the Hillcrest Cemetery in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
Where did Hiram Revels live?
FayettevilleBaltimoreAberdeenHiram Rhodes Revels/Places lived
Who did Hiram Revels represent?
Hiram Rhodes Revels, (born September 27, 1827, Fayetteville, North Carolina, U.S.—died January 16, 1901, Aberdeen, Mississippi), American clergyman, educator, and politician who became the first African American to serve in the U.S. Senate (1870–71), representing Mississippi during Reconstruction.
Where did Hiram Revels grow?
Revels was born in North Carolina in 1827. The son of free Black parents, he was trained as a barber, but later pursued an education and a career as a preacher. Ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, he traveled extensively, preaching throughout the Midwest and South.
How many kids did Hiram Revels have?
In the early 1850s, Revels married Phoebe A. Bass, a free black woman from Ohio, and they had six daughters.
When was Hiram Revels born?
September 27, 1827Hiram Rhodes Revels / Date of birth
Who was the first black female senator?
Carol Moseley Braun broke new ground in 1993, becoming the first African American woman to serve as U.S. senator. In 2005 Barack Obama of Illinois became the fifth African American to serve and third to be popularly elected.
What did Hiram Revels do before the Civil War?
Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland.
Who was the first African American to serve in Congress?
Elected to the the 41st Congress (1869–1871) in a special election, Rainey took his seat as the first African American to serve in the House on December 12, 1870.
Who were Hiram Revels parents?
Elijah RevelsHiram Rhodes Revels / Parents
How did Hiram Rhodes Revels feel about former confederates?
Hiram Rhodes Revels proved to be a voice of moderation during Reconstruction, and favored granting full amnesty to former Confederates as long as they swore an oath of loyalty to the United States.
What did Hiram Revels do before the Civil War?
Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator in 1870. Born in North Carolina in 1827, Revels attended Knox College in Illinois and later served as minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland.
Who were Hiram Revels parents?
Elijah RevelsHiram Rhodes Revels / Parents
Who certified the election of Hiram Revels to the Senate?
Letter dated January 25, 1870 from the Governor of the State of Mississippi and the Secretary of State of Mississippi that certified the election of Hiram Revels to the United States Senate.
What did Revels do in the Civil War?
During the American Civil War, Revels served as a chaplain in the United States Army. After the Union authorized establishment of the United States Colored Troops, he helped recruit and organize two black Union regiments in Maryland and Missouri. He took part at the Battle of Vicksburg in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
What was the greatest duty of Revels?
On February 25, 1870, Revels, on a party-line vote of 48 to 8, with Republicans voting in favor and Democrats voting against, became the first African American to be seated in the United States Senate.
What church did Revels join?
Political career. In 1865, Revels left the AME Church, the first independent black denomination in the US, and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was assigned briefly to churches in Leavenworth, Kansas, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Why was it unconstitutional to bar Revels?
Because of the war and the Amendments, they argued, the subordination of the black race was no longer part of the American constitutional regime and, therefore, it would be unconstitutional to bar Revels on the basis of the pre-Civil War Constitution's citizenship rules.
Where did Revels go to college?
He studied religion from 1855 to 1857 at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He became a minister in a Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland, where he also served as a principal of a black high school. During the American Civil War, Revels served as a chaplain in the United States Army.
Where did Elias Revels go to school?
After Elias Revels died in 1841, his widow Mary transferred the shop to Hiram Revels before she remarried. Revels attended the Beech Grove Quaker Seminary, a school in Union County, Indiana founded by Quakers, and Darke County Seminary in Ohio.
What did Revels do after he was sworn in?
Tenure in Office. Once he was sworn in, Revels tried to advocate for equality for Black people. He fought to have African Americans readmitted to the Georgia General Assembly after Democrats forced them out.
Why was Revels imprisoned?
While preaching to Back people in St. Louis, Mo., Revels was briefly imprisoned for fear that he, a freeman, might inspire enslaved Black people to revolt. In the early 1850s, he married Phoebe A. Bass, with whom he had six daughters.
Why did Revels lose his job at Alcorn?
He lost his job at Alcorn when he opposed the reelection bid of Mississippi Gov. Adelbert Ames, who Revels accused of exploiting the Black vote for personal gain. An 1875 letter Revels wrote to President Ulysses S. Grant about Ames and the carpetbaggers was heavily circulated. It said in part:
Why did Revels challenge the election?
Serving as a U.S. senator required nine years of citizenship, and Southern Democrats challenged Revels’ election by saying he didn’t meet the citizenship mandate. They cited the 1857 Dred Scott decision in which the Supreme Court determined that African Americans weren’t citizens. In 1868, however, the 14th Amendment granted Black people citizenship. That year, Black people became a force to contend with in politics. As the book “America’s History: Volume 1 to 1877” explains:
Why was Revels hailed as an orator?
Like Barack Obama would be more than a century later, Revels was hailed by his fans for his skills as an orator, which he likely developed because of his experience as a pastor. Revels served just one year as U.S. senator.
When did Revels retire?
In 1876, Revels resumed his work at Alcorn, where he served until retiring in 1882.
Did Revels vote in Ohio?
Revels’ supporters argued that the pastor-turned-politician had been a citizen. After all, he’d voted in Ohio in the 1850s before the Dred Scott decision changed the citizenship rules. Other supporters said that the Dred Scott decision should have only applied to men who were all Black and not mixed-race like Revels.
Who was Hiram Revels?
Hiram Revels was the principal of a black school in Baltimore and subsequently attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, on a scholarship from 1855 to 1857. He was one of the few black men in the United States with at least some college education. 6. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Revels helped recruit two black regiments from Maryland.
Where did Hiram Revels preach?
Revels traveled throughout the country, carrying out religious work and educating fellow African Americans in Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Although Missouri forbade free blacks to live in the state for fear they would instigate uprisings, Revels took a pastorate at an AME Church in St. Louis in 1853, noting that the law was “seldom enforced.” However, Revels later revealed he had to be careful because of restrictions on his movements. “I sedulously refrained from doing anything that would incite slaves to run away from their masters,” he recalled. “It being understood that my object was to preach the gospel to them, and improve their moral and spiritual condition even slave holders were tolerant of me.” 5 Despite his cautiousness, Revels was imprisoned for preaching to the black community in 1854. Upon his release, he accepted a position with the Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Maryland, working alongside his brother, Willis Revels, also an AME pastor. Hiram Revels was the principal of a black school in Baltimore and subsequently attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, on a scholarship from 1855 to 1857. He was one of the few black men in the United States with at least some college education. 6
How many states did Revels travel to?
3 Revels’s travels took him to as many as eight states before the Civil War. It is difficult to determine in which state he began his ministry. See Kenneth H. Williams, “Revels, Hiram Rhoades,” American National Biography 18 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999): 367–369 (hereinafter referred to as ANB ). Williams is one of the few historians to spell Revels’s middle name “Rhoades.” In his handwritten autobiography, Revels lists several states where he ministered, Indiana being the first; see “Autobiography of Hiram Revels,” Carter G. Woodson Collection, LC.
Why did Revels take a pastorate?
Louis in 1853, noting that the law was “seldom enforced.”. However, Revels later revealed he had to be careful because of restrictions on his movements.
What did Revels do during the Civil War?
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Revels helped recruit two black regiments from Maryland. In 1862, when black soldiers were permitted to fight, he served as the chaplain for a black regiment in campaigns in Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi.
Where did Hiram Rhodes Revels live?
Hiram Rhodes Revels was born to free parents in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 27, 1827. His father worked as a Baptist preacher, and his mother was of Scottish descent. He claimed his ancestors “as far back as my knowledge extends, were free,” and, in addition to his Scottish background, he was rumored to be of mixed African and Croatan Indian lineage. 2 In an era when educating black children was illegal in North Carolina, Revels attended a school taught by a free black woman and worked a few years as a barber. In 1844, he moved north to complete his education. Revels attended the Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty, Indiana, and the Darke County Seminary for black students, in Ohio. In 1845, Revels was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. His first pastorate was likely in Richmond, Indiana, where he was elected an elder to the AME Indiana Conference in 1849. 3 In the early 1850s, Revels married Phoebe A. Bass, a free black woman from Ohio, and they had six daughters. 4
Where were the Revels papers burned?
Many Revels papers were burned in a fire at Alcorn College in Mississippi.
Overview
College president
Revels accepted in 1871, after his term as U.S. Senator expired, appointment as the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University), a historically black college located in Claiborne County, Mississippi. He taught philosophy as well. In 1873, Revels took a leave of absence from Alcorn to serve as Mississippi's secretary of state ad interim. He …
Early life and education
Revels was born free in 1822 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to free people of color, with ancestors who had been free since before the American Revolution. His parents were of African American, European, and Native American ancestry. His mother was also specifically known to be of Scots descent. His father was a Baptist preacher.
Revels was a second cousin to Lewis Sheridan Leary, one of the men who were killed taking part in John …
Political career
In 1865, Revels left the AME Church, the first independent black denomination in the US, and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was assigned briefly to churches in Leavenworth, Kansas, and New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1866, he was called as a permanent pastor at a church in Natchez, Mississippi, where he settled with his wife and five daughters. He became an elder in the Mississipp…
Legacy
Revels's daughter Susie Revels Cayton edited a newspaper in Seattle, Washington. Among his grandsons were Horace R. Cayton Jr., co-author of Black Metropolis, and Revels Cayton, a labor leader. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hiram Rhodes Revels as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.
See also
• List of African-American United States senators
• List of Native Americans in the United States Congress
Additional reading
• Libby, Jean; Geffert, Hannah; Kenyatta, Jimica Akinloye (March 3, 2007), Hiram Revels Related to Men in John Brown's Army, alliesforfreedom.org
• Borome, Joseph A. "The Autobiography of Hiram Rhodes Revels Together with Some Letters by and about Him," Midwest Journal, 5 (Winter 1952–1953), pp. 79–92.