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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—MississippiHiram Rhodes REVELS
(1827-1901)
Senate Years of Service:
1870-1871Party: RepublicanREVELS, 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 University (formerly Oakland College),
Rodney, Miss., 1876-1874, 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.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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