On This Day in Black History

 For Black History Month I focused more on fashion this year, (last year I did local histories), but as we near the end of the month, I found one more thing I wanted to share.

Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black man to serve in Congress.  Also the first person with Native American ancestry, from the Croatan tribe.

He was elected senator from Natchez, Mississippi in 1870.

Born free in North Carolina in 1827, he later moved to Ohio where he voted before the Civil War.

During the war, he helped organize regiments of the Colored Troops in the Union Army, which included other minority groups as well.  He also served as a chaplain.

When he arrived in Washington DC, opponents argued, based on the 1857 Dred Scott ruling, that a person of African descent was not a citizen.  Since the 14th Amendment was not ratified until 1868, Revels did not meet the requirement of nine years' prior citizenship.

Those who supported Revels claimed that the war and the Reconstruction amendments overturned Dred Scott, therefore he had been a citizen all along.  And so, it was on this day, that the Senate voted 48-8 for him to serve.

He was on the Committee of Education and Labor as well as the Committee on the District of Columbia.  (Congress administered the district at this time).  Revels argued for amnesty and restoration of citizenship for ex-Confederates who would swear loyalty to the United States.

He fought for equality.  He spoke in favor of desegregation. He argued for the reinstatement of black legislators who had been illegally ousted in Georgia.

"They aim not to elevate themselves by sacrificing one single interest of their fellow white citizens."

After the senate, Revels became the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College.

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