Photo: The first seven African Americans elected to
the 41st and 42nd U.S. Congress. (Currier
and Ives original 1872 Image.)
Hiram
Rhodes Revels of Mississippi was the first black elected as a United States
senator, serving from 1870-1871 as a Republican.
Revels
completed the unfinished term of Jefferson Davis who was the former president
of the confederacy.
Revels was followed in the Senate by
Republican Blanche K. Bruce, also of Mississippi. Republican Joseph Rainey of South Carolina
was the first black to enter the House of Representatives.
Below is a list of the black
Republicans elected to Congress during the Reconstruction era. Their lifespan is shown in parenthesis.
United States Senate
Hiram
Rhodes Revels (1822-1901); Republican – Mississippi; 1870-1871
Blanche
Bruce (1841-1898); Republican – Mississippi; 1875-1881
House of Representatives
John
Willis Menard (1838-1893); Republican – Louisiana; 1868
Joseph
Rainey (1832-1887); Republican – South Carolina; 1870-1879
Jefferson
F. Long (1836-1901); Republican – Georgia; 1870-1871
Robert
C. De Large (1842-1874); Republican - South Carolina; 1871-1873
Robert
B. Elliott (1842-1884); Republican – South Carolina; 1871-1874
Benjamin
S. Turner (1825-1894); Republican – Alabama; 1871-1873
Josiah
T. Walls (1842-1905); Republican – Florida; 1871-1873, 1873-1875, 1875-1876
Richard
H. Cain (1825-1887); Republican – South Carolina; 1873-1875, 1877-1879
John
R. Lynch (1847-1939); Republican – Mississippi; 1873-1877, 1882-1883
James
T. Rapier (1837-1883); Republican – Alabama; 1873-1875
Alonzo
J. Ransier (1834-1882); Republican – South Carolina; 1873-1875
Jeremiah
Haralson (1846-1916); Republican – Alabama; 1875-1877
John
Adams Hyman (1840-1891); Republican – North Carolina; 1875-1877
Charles
E. Nash (1844-1913); Republican – Louisiana; 1875-1877
Robert
Smalls (1839-1915); Republican – South Carolina; 1875-1879, 1882-1883,
1884-1887
James
E. O'Hara (1844-1905); Republican – North Carolina; 1883-1887
Henry
P. Cheatham (1857-1935); Republican – North Carolina; 1889-1893
John
Mercer Langston (1829-1897); Republican – Virginia; 1890-1891
Thomas
E. Miller (1849-193); Republican – South Carolina; 1890-1891
George
W. Murray (1853-1926); Republican – South Carolina; 1893-1895, 1896-1897
George
Henry White (1852-1918); Republican – North Carolina; 1897-1901
