Hiram Rhodes Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels (27 September 1827 – 16 January 1901) was an American politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and a university administrator. Born enslaved in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.

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Quotes

I bear about me daily the keenest sense of their weight, and that feeling prompts me now to lift my voice for the first time in this council chamber of the nation; and, sir, I stand today on this floor to appeal for protection from the strong arm of the government for her loyal children, irrespective of color and race, who are citizens of the southern states, and particularly of the State of Georgia. I am well aware, sir, that the idea is abroad that an antagonism exists between the whites and blacks, that that race which the nation raised from the degradation of slavery, and endowed with the full and unqualified rights and privileges of citizenship, are intent upon power, at whatever price it can be gained. It has been the well-considered purpose and aim of a class not confined to the south to spread this charge over the land, and their efforts are as vigorous today to educate the people of this nation into that belief as they were at the close of the war. It was not uncommon to find this same class, even during the rebellion, prognosticating a servile war.
- Speech to the Senate (16 March 1870)