Nearly 140 years ago, another black senator made history

[bigtree]

Mississippi Republican Hiram Revels captivated a nation in the midst of social upheaval following the Civil War


The Senate galleries were packed, filled with both black and white spectators, and a murmur filled the air as the nation's first black member of Congress, Sen. Hiram Revels, stood to deliver his first speech to the chamber.

Nearly 140 years before Sen. Barack Obama's historic quest to become the nation's first black president, Revels captivated a nation in the midst of social upheaval following the Civil War. The date was March 16, 1870, less than five years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.

{snip}

"He had a persona, sort of in a weird way, like Obama, in that he didn't really run as a race man," said Eric Foner, a historian at New York's Columbia University.

Revels became something of a celebrity senator, going on lecture tours in the North and West. In Boston, abolitionist Wendell Phillips introduced Revels as the "15th Amendment in flesh and blood," referring to the constitutional change guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race.

"An astonishing ovation followed his footsteps in New England," The Washington Post said in a 1901 obituary. "Men and women of letters and public functionaries and university educators greeted him with enthusiasm as though a new prophet had arisen in the land."


read more: http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=750629

[ourbluenation]

1. Amazing man - here's more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Rhodes_Revels

excerpt...

Revels was born free in Fayetteville, North Carolina, of a free father of mixed white and black ancestry, and a white mother of Scottish heritage.<1> He was tutored by a black woman for his early education. In 1838 he went to live with his brother, Elias B. Revels, in Lincolnton, North Carolina, and was apprenticed as a barber in his brother's shop. Elias Revels died in 1841, and his widow Mary turned over her assets to Hiram before she remarried.

Revels attended the Union County Quaker Seminary in Indiana, and from 1856-57, Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He also studied at a black seminary in Ohio. Revels was ordained a minister in 1845. As a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Revels preached in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, and Maryland in the 1850s. "At times, I met with a great deal of opposition," he later recalled. "I was imprisoned in Missouri in 1854 for preaching the gospel to Negroes, though I was never subjected to violence." In 1845 he became a minister in Baltimore, Maryland and set up a private school.

As a chaplain Revels helped raise two black Union regiments during the Civil War in Maryland and Missouri, and took part at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi.<2>

snip

U.S. Senator

Revels spoke for compromise and moderation. A vigorous advocate of racial equality, Revels tried to reassure Senators about the capability of blacks. In his maiden speech to the Senate on March 16, 1870, in a plea to reinstate the black legislators of the Georgia General Assembly who had been illegally ousted by white representatives, he said, "I maintain that the past record of my race is a true index of the feelings which today animate them. They aim not to elevate themselves by sacrificing one single interest of their white fellow citizens" (Ploski 18).

He served on both the Committee on Education and Labor and the Committee on the District of Columbia. Much of the Senate's attention focused on Reconstruction issues. While Radical Republicans called for continued punishment of ex-Confederates, Revels argued for amnesty and a restoration of full citizenship, provided they swore an oath of loyalty to the United States.

Revels's term lasted one year, February 1870 to March 3, 1871. He quietly, persistently--although for the most part unsuccessfully--worked for equality. He spoke against an amendment proposed by Senator Allen G. Thurman (D-Ohio) to keep the schools of Washington, D.C., segregated. He nominated a young black man to the United States Military Academy, although he was subsequently denied admission. Revels was successful, however, in championing the cause of black workers who had been barred by their color from working at the Washington Navy Yard.

Revels was praised in the newspapers for his oratorical abilities. His conduct in the Senate, along with that of the other African Americans who had been seated in the House of Representatives, also prompted a white contemporary, James G. Blaine, to say, "The colored men who took their seats in both Senate and House were as a rule studious, earnest, ambitious men, whose public conduct would be honorable to any race."[3

[dsc]

2. He went to my alma mater (Knox)

which is kind of cool.

[ourbluenation]

3. Good for you. All I have is Ed Rollins and Don Young. (Chico State)

ugh

[dsc]

7. We also stole Carl Sandberg

He had gone to a little known, now defunct local college so we stole their alumni.

[malaise]

4. Thanks

K & R

[bigtree]

5. I like reading about this period

Many writers like to portray these black legislators as troublemakers but it's clear that many were very distinguished, interesting figures in our history.

[lonestarnot]

6. Interesting!

Thank you!