With the recent election and Black History Month, I thought it would be fitting to talk about Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first black congressman. Revels was born on September 27, 1827, in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to free parents. His father was a Baptist preacher, and his mother was of Scottish ancestry. Even though he grew up during a time when teaching black children was illegal, he went to school and taught by a free black woman.
In 1844, Revels moved north and went to Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty, Indiana, and the Darke County Seminary for black students, in Ohio. Then, in 1845, he was ordained in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In the early 1850s he married Phoebe A. Bass who was a free woman from Ohio, and together they had 6 daughters.
Revels wasn’t born a slave but served in many slave communities. During the 1850s he went around the country teaching African Americans and doing religious work. When the Civil War broke out, Revels served as a chaplain for a black regiment. In 1870, Revels was originally chosen to serve for a year in the Mississippi legislature to replace Jefferson Davis, who had left his seat when he became president of the Confederacy.
Source: https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/hiram-rhodes-revels.htm
