Born to free parents in Virginia, Hodges became an outspoken advocate for enslaved African Americans during the Antebellum period, giving aid to the Underground Railroad in the North after a move to New York, and collaborating with such notable figures as William Lloyd Garrison, John Brown and Frederick Douglass.

[2] While Hodges later became a forceful opponent of slavery, his mother's origins led to his having also a lifelong concern for the free blacks in the South, who suffered many constraints.

[6] In the aftermath of the Nat Turner's Rebellion, the white legislature passed severe discriminatory measures against free blacks, fearing more uprisings.

[8] Hodges quickly grew impatient with Northerners whom he viewed as being "more men of words than deeds,"[3] and became an impassioned advocate for the immediate abolition of slavery by any means necessary.

The conventions of this period, mandated by the United States Congress, marked the "first time [blacks] sat alongside whites as lawmakers,"[10] both in Virginia and throughout the occupied South.

[10] Aligning with the Radical Republicans, Hodges supported the enfranchisement of blacks, demanded the disenfranchisement of former Confederates, and sought integration of public schools, established for the first time by biracial legislatures in the South.