“The Fifteenth Amendment in Flesh and Blood:” 1870–1901

On January 20, 1870, the Mississippi state legislature elected Hiram R. Revels to the U.S. Senate. A North Carolina-born preacher who was elected as a Republican to the Mississippi state senate in 1869, Revels was poised to become the first African-American Member of Congress. Mississippi had been without representation in Congress since seceding to join the Confederacy in 1861, and Revels was chosen to finish the remainder of a term ending at the close of the 41st Congress (1869–1871). He arrived in Washington 10 days later, just before the start of a remarkable month on Capitol Hill during which the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed Black voting rights in the Constitution. Nearly five years after the end of the Civil War, the Republican-led effort known as Reconstruction had done much to reshape the South and protect the civil and political rights of newly emancipated African Americans. Now Congress was prepared to consider a bill to formally readmit Mississippi to the Union, and Revels was confident he would be seated quickly.¹

Over the next four weeks, however, the Senator-elect was reduced to being a spectator as Congress delayed seating him. An extended debate on Mississippi’s status held up the bill to reinstate the formerly rebellious state. But on February 23, Mississippi finally rejoined the Union. That afternoon, from a seat in the Senate gallery, Revels watched as his would-be colleagues engaged in intense deliberations concerning his qualifications for the office. Central to this contentious debate was the question of citizenship. Congress had explicitly clarified the status of African Americans by law in 1866 and in the Fourteenth Amendment, which, when ratified in 1868, established citizenship for anyone born in the United States. Had Revels been a citizen long enough to meet the nine-year requirement set by the U.S. Constitution for membership in the Senate? Senators largely divided along partisan lines, with Democrats arguing that Revels was ineligible and Republicans defending his credentials. After two days, the Republican majority in the Senate finally voted to seat Revels on February 25. He was sworn in at 4:40 p.m. as the first Black Member of Congress.²

“There was not an inch of standing or sitting room in the galleries, so densely were they packed,” noted the New York Times, “and to say that the interest was intense gives but a faint idea of the feeling which prevailed throughout the entire proceedings.” Newspapers across the nation covered this historic moment in the Senate chamber—and many explicitly noted that Revels represented Mississippi, the home of former U.S. Representative and Senator and Confederate president Jefferson Davis.³

For former abolitionists and Radical Republicans in Congress, Reconstruction was a way to remake the country, and Revels was celebrated as a living reminder of the new democratic order taking hold in the South in the years following the Civil War. In a speech in Boston in May 1870, the Massachusetts abolitionist Wendell Phillips hailed Revels as “a true embodiment of southern reconstruction...the fifteenth amendment in flesh and blood, the incarnation of this last proud step in our nation’s progress.” For Phillips, a Black Senator validated the long struggle to destroy the institution of slavery as well as the transformative measures implemented during Reconstruction. In the five years following the war, Congress had amended the Constitution and passed legislation to abolish slavery and protect the civil and political rights of freed people. Black elected officials were crucial to new state and local governments forged in the once rebellious southern states. Phillips predicted that Revels was “the first drop in the coming shower” and that many more Black Members would soon be elected to Congress.⁴

Nearly 10 months after Revels took his seat in the Senate, Republican Joseph H. Rainey of South Carolina was sworn in as the first Black Member of the U.S. House of Representatives on December 12, 1870. In November, Rainey had won a special election to fill a vacancy in the 41st Congress, making him the first popularly elected Black Member of Congress. Unlike the Senate, where Members were chosen by state legislatures until 1913, House Members have always been directly elected by the people.

Revels and Rainey were the vanguard of a much larger movement that would fundamentally change the course of American history. In the years after the war, emancipation and Reconstruction dramatically altered southern congressional districts. Federal law required states to fully count freed people in the apportionment process, and Black Americans won the power to vote and serve in Congress. Within five years, 14 more Black Members followed Revels and Rainey to Capitol Hill. This profound increase coincided with significant legislative achievements securing civil and political rights for African Americans across the nation.

The 44th Congress (1875–1877), however, proved to be the high-water mark for Black representation, with seven African Americans serving in the House and one in the Senate. By 1877, the Democratic Party, led by many of the same officials who had sparked the secession movement and fought for the Confederacy, had regained control of southern state governments. Democrats proceeded to implement a coordinated policy of discrimination, intimidation, and violence to block Black political participation and undermine the Republican Party in the South—effectively ending the federal project of Reconstruction. State legislatures no longer chose Black Senators. Gerrymandered congressional districts reduced opportunities for Black House candidates. During the next two decades, the number of African Americans in each Congress precipitously declined: only six new Black Members were elected after 1874, and for most Congresses, only one or two Black Members served on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless, these lawmakers soldiered on, searching for new ways to use the powers of the federal government to resuscitate Black freedom as the crushing weight of Jim Crow discrimination settled over the South.

Ultimately, 20 Black Representatives and two Black Senators served in Congress between 1870 and 1901. Each displayed a formidable array of skills as a lawmaker, orator, and activist. Although most were isolated in Congress and served only one or two terms, they pursued ambitious reforms while diligently working to protect the interests of their constituents. They were all Republicans from the South who called for the federal government to act decisively to pass legislation to guarantee the civil and political rights of freed people.

Black lawmakers recognized that they brought a distinct perspective to Congress, which informed their legislative agenda and gave them insight into the ambitions of nearly five million African Americans living in the United States. Less than a month into his tenure in the Senate, Hiram Revels prefaced his first remarks on the floor by noting that he was uniquely positioned to express “feelings which perhaps never before entered into the experience of any member of this body.” Black Members had seen repression and exclusion. Many had been enslaved before the war. But they were also part of the grand democratic experiment of Reconstruction in the South. During their service in Congress, nearly all of them described racial discrimination and segregation taking hold in the South in new ways, even as Congress attempted to end such practices during the late 1860s and into the 1870s.⁵

Starting with Revels and Rainey, African-American legislators brought this lived experience into the halls of Congress until the final Black Member elected in the nineteenth century, George Henry White of North Carolina, left office in 1901. No African-American lawmaker would be elected to Congress until 1928.

This section explores the inspiring, harrowing, and tumultuous 30-year journey of Black lawmakers in the period after the Civil War. From the revolutionary moment of Reconstruction to the onset of a system of racial exclusion in the South that undid decades of progress, Black Members of Congress remained resolute in their bold efforts to democratize American politics and society while maintaining their tenuous foothold in the national legislature.

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