NATCHEZ, Miss. — The state that selected a Natchez clergyman in 1870 to be the first Black ever to sit in the U.S. Congress has after 156 years elected another Black to that Senate seat with Scott Colom’s stunning victory in Mississippi.
After being declared the winner Wednesday, Colom began his victory speech reciting how Hiram Revels — “a minister from Natchez, Mississippi” — became the country’s first Black member of Congress:
Revels led the opening prayer for the state assembly gathered to select the U.S. senator for Mississippi. “He gave a prayer that was so powerful that people at that convention decided that he had the voice to be a United States senator,” Colom said. “That’s an example of the power of prayer.”
Revels, who was pastor at Natchez’ Zion Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, was picked to be senator as Mississippi was readmitted to the United States. He served just one year — leaving the Senate in 1871 to become the first president of what’s now Alcorn State University.
Revels began his political career when elected a Natchez alderman in 1868, according to the U.S. Congress’ biographical directory. He rapidly went on to higher office — winning a seat in the Mississippi Senate in 1869 and then rose a year later to the U.S. Senate when state legislators picked senators rather than the general electorate.
“A freeman his entire life, Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African-American to serve in the U.S. Congress. With his moderate political orientation and oratorical skills honed from years as a preacher, Revels filled a vacant seat in the United States Senate in 1870,” states his Congressional biography. He took the seat vacated when Mississippi seceded from the Union in 1861.
Revels was a Republican, when most Blacks back then associated with that political party. While in the Senate, Revels favored amnesty for former Confederates and built a reputation as a political moderate.
According to Congressional records, Revels said “the Republican party is not inflamed … against the white population of the South. Its borders are wide enough for all truly loyal men to find within them some peace and repose from the din and discord of angry factions.”
Colom, a Democratic district attorney from Columbus, is being credited for winning votes in several Republican Mississippi strongholds. He defeated Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith of Brookhaven by about 4,700 votes statewide, according to The Associated Press tally that took a week to finalize Wednesday.
Colom’s election as Mississippi’s first Black senator since Reconstruction has attracted national attention in light of the Republican-dominated state’s past history of black oppression and civil rights struggles.
He delivered his victory speech Wednesday night at Tougaloo College, which was a safe haven for civil rights activists in 1960s. Among those there Wednesday was former Natchez alderman Joyce Arceneaux-Mathis, a NAACP leader, who was interviewed by MS NOW (formerly MSNBC).
“For Scott to be here and to be at this time and this place, and to be the first African-American senator elected since Reconstruction, we are happy – but we knew it was coming” said Arceneaux-Mathis, who noted how hard Colom’s campaign worked to get supporters to vote.
After leaving the Senate, Revels served as Alcorn’s university president 1871-1874 and 1876-1882. He moved to Holly Springs to continue his religious work and died in 1901 at age 73.
Comments