ON THIS DATE - FEBRUARY 25: Two days after Mississippi was readmitted to the Union, Hiram Revels became the first Black American elected to the U.S. Senate from the Magnolia State. "All men are created equal, says the great Declaration,” Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts said, “and now... we make the Declaration a reality." Born free in North Carolina, Revels became a national force in an office (in the Senate) once held by Jefferson Davis, the former President of the Confederacy. A minister by trade, he was arrested in 1854 for preaching to the Black community. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, he helped recruit two black regiments from Maryland and later served as chaplain for Black soldiers fighting in Mississippi. After the war ended, his family settled in Natchez, Miss., where he was elected as an alderman and later as a state senate. While in the U.S. Senate, he supported universal amnesty for former Confederate soldiers. (Mississippi Today 02/25/23) Hiram Revels first Black U.S. senator in 1870 - Mississippi Today
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