Hiram Rhodes Revels (September 27, 1827[note 1] – January 16, 1901) was an American Republican politician, minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and college administrator.

During the American Civil War, Revels had helped organize two regiments of the United States Colored Troops and served as a chaplain.

As men of all races used barbers, the trade provided black Americans an opportunity to establish networks with the white community.

[6] In 1845, Revels was ordained as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME); he served as a preacher and religious teacher throughout the Midwest: in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, Missouri, and Kansas.

He became a minister in a Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland, where he also served as a principal of a black high school.

He became an elder in the Mississippi District of the Methodist Church,[8] continued his ministerial work, and founded schools for black children.

In 1870, Revels was elected by a vote of 81 to 15 in the Mississippi legislature to finish the term of one of the state's two seats in the U.S. Senate, which had been left vacant since the Civil War.

[13] The Democrats based their opposition on the 1857 Dred Scott Decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that people of African ancestry were not and could not be citizens.

They argued that no black man was a citizen before the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, and thus Revels could not satisfy the requirement of the Senate for nine years' prior citizenship.

[15] The more fundamental argument by Revels's supporters was that the Civil War, and the Reconstruction amendments, had overturned Dred Scott.

He vigorously supported racial equality and worked to reassure his fellow senators about the capability of African Americans.

In his maiden speech to the Senate on March 16, 1870, he argued for the reinstatement of the black legislators of the Georgia General Assembly, who had been illegally ousted by white Democratic Party representatives.

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.

He spoke against an amendment proposed by Senator Allen G. Thurman (D-Ohio) to keep the schools of Washington, D.C., segregated and argued for their integration.

[8] He nominated a young black man to the United States Military Academy; the youth was subsequently denied admission.

Revels successfully championed the cause of black workers who had been barred by their color from working at the Washington Navy Yard.

His conduct in the Senate, along with that of the other black Americans who had been seated in the House of Representatives, prompted a white Congressman, James G. Blaine (R-Maine), to write in his memoir, "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] On November 6, 1875, Revels wrote a letter to fellow Republican and President Ulysses S. Grant that was widely reprinted.

Revels denounced Ames and the carpetbaggers for manipulating the black vote for personal benefit, and for keeping alive wartime hatreds:[21] Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves, and perpetuate it.

The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this state, except perhaps in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them.Revels remained active as a Methodist Episcopal minister in Holly Springs, Mississippi and became an elder in the Upper Mississippi District.

[22] In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hiram Rhodes Revels as one of the 100 Greatest African Americans.