The Fifteenth Amendment Personified
As Mississippi's first Black Senator, Hiram Revels represented the new freedoms of Reconstruction.
In 1870, a Black man was chosen to represent the state of Mississippi in the United States Senate. After three days of highly publicized debate and pushback by Senate Democrats, Hiram Rhodes Revels was admitted into the Senate as the first Black U.S. Senator.
His ascension to the United States Senate marked a significant milestone in American politics and African American history in the tumultuous era of Reconstruction following the Civil War. This milestone has since been lost in the annals of time for many Americans.
Revels was born a free man on September 27th, 1827, in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Despite growing up in an era where educating Black children was illegal in North Carolina, Revels managed to obtain an education by attending a school taught by free Black women and later the Beech Grove Quaker Seminary up north in Liberty, Indiana. Here, he was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, a congregation that originated as a protest against the racial discrimination experienced in white Methodist congregations. During his early years in the AME church, Revels traveled throughout the country preaching to Black communities in states like Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee.
During his travels, Revels witnessed firsthand the injustices and racial discrimination prevalent throughout the United States, particularly in the South. At the time, many states had enacted laws known as Black Codes, which restricted the rights and movements of Black individuals, even those who were legally "free." These codes denied Black people the right to own property, conduct businesses, and move freely through public spaces. After the Civil War, Black Codes increased in creation and application in Southern states as a way to try and oppress the newly-emancipated Black Americans.
Revels challenged this social order when he moved to St. Louis, Missouri, in 1853. Missouri prohibited by law free Black Americans from living in the state for fear they would foster discontent among the enslaved population. Despite this, the oppressive environment fueled Revels' commitment to spreading faith and religion with the people of Missouri, as he continued to live and preach to the community in St. Louis as an outlaw. Because of his continued service and illegal residence in Missouri as a free Black man, he was briefly imprisoned in 1854 for less than a year.
Following his imprisonment in Missouri, Revels relocated to Maryland, where he continued his ministry and lived when the Civil War started in 1861. As the slaveholding states in the South seceded and the free states in the North mobilized their support for the Union, Maryland remained loyal to the Union despite being a slaveholding state.
For that reason, Maryland became an ideologically split state. Despite supporting and remaining a part of the Union, parts of the state still held sympathies with the Confederacy. The population living north and west of Baltimore had a solid allegiance to the Union cause. In contrast, most living in the southern and eastern parts of the state committed to the Confederacy.
Now serving as a minister in Baltimore, Revels found himself deeply engaged in the abolitionist movement and supporting the Union cause. Before long, he had recruited and formed two Black Union regiments in Maryland and had moved back down to Mississippi to serve as chaplain for the Union Army.
At the war's end, Revels settled in Natchez, Mississippi, and was reinstated as a minister in the AME church. Here in Natchez, Revels held his first elected position as alderman–a county council member, next in status to mayor. This caught the attention of Reconstruction Republicans.
Revels' early education and life experiences as a free Black man were vastly different from those of other Black Americans of his time due to his ability to travel freely around the country. He had gained extensive knowledge about white America from his travels. When elected to the Mississippi Senate in 1869, he emerged as a noncontroversial spokesman for the Black population. White Republicans were interested in Revels and encouraged him to run for higher office. In 1870, the Mississippi state legislature appointed Revels to fill Mississippis' vacant seat in the U.S. Senate.
The Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, including the formerly enslaved, was ratified in 1868, only two years before Revels' appointment to the Senate. The Fourteenth Amendment's legitimacy and subsequent appointment were argued against Revels when he traveled to Washington in February of 1870 to begin his term as Mississippi's senator.
Despite the progress of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, Revels was forced to travel in the colored compartment when he traveled to Washington, D.C., to accept his senate seat.
The segregation of train cars and steamboats was not only a matter of social custom but also reflected the prevailing attitudes of white supremacy that were deeply ingrained in American society despite the efforts of Reconstruction. The doctrine of "separate but equal," although it didn't become written law until 1896 with the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, was deeply ingrained in the former Confederate states nearly thirty years prior.
In 1870, the Constitution prohibited individuals from serving in the Senate unless they had been citizens for at least nine years. Senate Democrats argued that before the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment, Revels had not been a U.S. citizen due to the judicial decision in Dred Scott v. Sanford, stating that Black individuals could not enjoy the rights and privileges the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. According to the Senate Democrats, Revels had only been a legal citizen for two years and, therefore, could not serve in the Senate.
Revels was admitted to the U.S. Senate on February 25th, 1870 with a vote of 48-8. Twenty-two days earlier, the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, giving Black men the right to vote.
Revels was introduced to the country as the "Fifteenth Amendment in flesh and blood."
Nine years before Revels' appointment, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis walked off the Senate floor straight to the Confederacy. The seat had been left vacant for nine years before Revels, and the appointment of a Black Republican to fill that seat represented the fulfillment of the rights and protections guaranteed by the amendment.
When Revels took office, Senator Charles Sumner—a white Massachusetts politician, exclaimed, "All men are created equal, says the great Declaration, and now a great act attests this verity. Today, we make the Declaration a reality."
Though Revels' time as a U.S. Senator was short-lived—he held the position for only one year since his term expired in 1871, and Mississippi had chosen James L. Alcorn, that state's governor, to become their next senator—his tenure had a lasting impact on American history and politics. During his time in the Senate, he fought to reinstate Black officials in Georgia who had been pushed out of their positions and fought to integrate schools in the District of Columbia.
Revels moved home to Mississippi after his time in the Senate and became the first President of Alcorn State University, which was founded in 1871. As the president of Mississippi's first institution of higher education for Black Americans, he continued his work as a senator to champion and support the education of the Black population. Fewer than 1,000 Black individuals had access to education before the Civil War. By the end of the 19th century, thanks to efforts like those of Revels, that number had increased significantly. Alcorn is now the oldest public historically Black (HBCU) land-grant institution in the United States. Alcorn State University was named after James L. Alcorn.
On January 16th, 1901, Revels passed away while attending a religious conference in Aberdeen, Mississippi, after suffering a paralytic stroke. He was 74 years old.
Hiram Revels' story, though remarkable, became one among many in the broader struggle for civil rights. The collective memory emphasizes later achievements and leaders, often relegating earlier trailblazers like Revels to the background. The complexity of his era, the brief nature of his Senate tenure, and the evolving landscape of civil rights activism all contribute to the relative obscurity of his legacy. He broke new ground for African Americans in politics and embodied the spirit of Reconstruction that the United States still struggles to emulate today.
In an 1871 speech, Revels declared, "I am true to my own race. I wish to see all that can be done for their encouragement, to assist them in acquiring property, in becoming intelligent, enlightened, useful, valuable citizens. I wish to see this much done for them, and I believe God makes it the duty of this nation to do this much for them."
Thoroughly enjoyed the read and very enlightening.