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The first two African-American senators represented the state of Mississippi during the Reconstruction era, following the American Civil War. Hiram Rhodes Revels, the first African American to serve in the Senate, was elected in 1870 [5] by the Mississippi State Legislature to succeed Albert G. Brown, who resigned during the Civil War.
January 25, 1870, letter from the governor and secretary of state of Mississippi that certified the election of Hiram Rhodes Revels to the Senate. First black senator and representatives: Sen. Hiram Revels (R-MS), Rep. Benjamin S. Turner (R-AL), Robert DeLarge (R-SC), Josiah Walls (R-FL), Jefferson Long (R-GA), Joseph Rainey and Robert B. Elliott (R-SC)
Born free in North Carolina, he later lived and worked in Ohio, where he voted before the Civil War. Elected by the Mississippi legislature to the United States Senate as a Republican to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era, he was the first African American to serve in either house of the U.S. Congress.
Nevertheless, many African Americans served in its legislature and Mississippi was the only state that elected African American candidates to the U.S. Senate during the Reconstruction era; a total of 37 African Americans served in the Senate and 117 served in the House.
When his now-rival Nikki Haley appointed him to the U.S. Senate in 2012, Scott became the first Black senator from the South since just after the Civil War. In a 2014 special election to serve out ...
Edward Brooke was the first African-American since Reconstruction in 1874 to have been elected to the United States Senate and he was the first African-American since 1881 to have held a United States Senate seat. Brooke was also the first African-American U.S. senator to ever be re-elected.
Moseley Braun is the first African American woman to serve in the U.S. Senate. [19] [20] Along with Republican Edward Brooke, she was one of two African Americans to serve in the Senate in the 20th century. [21] Moseley Braun was the sole African American in the Senate during her tenure. [20]
J. Jacob Calhoun is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Nau Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. He researches 19th-century American history including the history of Black politics.