A Unique Man

Here’s a name you’ve probably never heard of: Hiram Rhodes Revels. Ring a bell? We didn’t think so.

Hiram was born in 1827 in Fayetteville, the son of a Baptist preacher. What set Hiram apart was that he was black … and not a slave. His mother and father were free; he said that as far back as he could trace, all ancestors were free.

He was unique in the slave-holding South.

Hiram earned another distinction following the Civil War when in 1870 he became the first black man to serve in the United States Congress as a Mississippi senator.

– Ron Smith, S&A Communications