Celebrating Black History Month: Blanche Bruce, first African-American senator to serve a full term

Blanche Kelso Bruce, born March 1, 1841 into slavery in Virginia, was the first elected African-American from Mississippi senator to serve a full term.  Hiram Revels, also of Mississippi was the first African-American senator but did not complete a full term.

His mother was a domestic slave and his father was her master, Pettis Perkinson, a white Virginia planter.  His father legally freed him and arranged for an apprenticeship to learn a trade.  He worked as a steamboat porter on the Mississippi River and moved to Hannibal, Missouri where he established a school for black children.  In 1868, he purchased a Mississippi Delta plantation and became a landowner of several thousand acres in the delta area.  

He was elected to the Senate in 1874 and on February 14, 1879, he presided over the first African-American and the only former slave to do so.  He served from March 1875 to March 1881.  

He was appointed Register of the Treasury in 1897 by President William McKinley and served until his death in 1898.  

Celebrating Black History Month: Hiram Rhodes Revels, first African-American U.S. Senator

Hiram Rhodes Revels, born September 27, 1827 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, became the first African-American senator when he was elected February 25, 1870, representing the State of Mississippi.  During the Civil War, he organized two regiments of the United States Colored Troops and acted as chaplain.

In 1869 he was elected to the Mississippi State Senate representing Adams County.  In 1870, he was elected by the state senate to finish the term of a U.S. senator which had been vacant since the Civil War.  His election was opposed by southern Democrats, but on February 25, 1870, he was elected by a vote of 48 to 8. 

He served for one year until March 3, 1871 and worked for equality during his term.  He passed away in January 1901 in Aberdeen, Mississippi.