Guest Author - Linda Sue Grimes

Hiram Rhoades Revels was the first African American to serve in the United States Senate. He was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on September 27, 1822. His father’s ancestry was African, European, Lumbee Indian; his mother had been a slave, who was emancipated.

In March 1838 at age 16, Revels began learning the barber trade, working with his brother, Elias, in his brother’s barbershop Lincolnton, North Carolina. His brother died when Hiram was nineteen, leaving him to manage the business, but Hiram decided to further his education by attending Union County Quaker Seminary in Liberty, Indiana.

Revels also attended Knox College and was ordained a minister of the African Methodist Church. He traveled widely through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, parts of the south, and west. Later he moved to Baltimore and became principal of an African American school. While serving as a principal, he also served as a pastor of a church.

When the Civil War started in 1861, Revels supported the Union, even though he lived in a border state with some residents supporting the North, while others supported the South. Revels helped organize two African American troops in Maryland.

In 1863, Revels relocated to St. Louis, where he founded a school for African Americans and helped recruit African Americans for a Missouri regiment. He served as a chaplain in the Union Army and as a provost marshal at Vicksburg.

After the war, along with his wife and five daughters, Revels made his residence in Natchez, Mississippi, where became an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He continued to found and organize new churchesRevels was elected alderman in Natchez in 1868, and 1869, he was elected state senator from Adams County. In 1870, he was elected to serve out an unexpired term as United States senator from Mississippi. This senate seat had been vacated by Jefferson Davis a decade earlier. Revels served in the U.S. Senate from February 25, 1870 until March 4, 1871.

After his stint as U.S. senator, Revels retuned to Mississippi and became the president of Alcorn College, Mississippi’s first African American college. He retired from Alcorn, where he also taught philosophy, in 1882.

Revels remained very active throughout his life; he served as interim secretary of state in 1873. He worked to rid his state and the South of the carpetbaggers. In his famous letter to President Grant, he wrote:

Since reconstruction, the masses of my people have been, as it were, enslaved in mind by unprincipled adventurers, who, caring nothing for country, were willing to stoop to anything no matter how infamous, to secure power to themselves, and perpetuate it..... My people have been told by these schemers, when men have been placed on the ticket who were notoriously corrupt and dishonest, that they must vote for them; that the salvation of the party depended upon it; that the man who scratched a ticket was not a Republican. This is only one of the many means these unprincipled demagogues have devised to perpetuate the intellectual bondage of my people.... The bitterness and hate created by the late civil strife has, in my opinion, been obliterated in this state, except perhaps in some localities, and would have long since been entirely obliterated, were it not for some unprincipled men who would keep alive the bitterness of the past, and inculcate a hatred between the races, in order that they may aggrandize themselves by office, and its emoluments, to control my people, the effect of which is to degrade them.

In addition to his educational, religious, and political work, he became the editor of the Southwestern Christian Advocate. Revels died on January 16, 1001, fittingly during a church conference in Aberdeen, Mississippi.

Reference:
Hiram Rhoades Revels
Hiram Rhodes Revels
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Books by Linda Sue Grimes:

Singing in the Silence: Poems of Faith

In 1978, I began studying the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda. I still study those teachings and strive to practice what I learn. I think of my writing as an extension and reinforcement of my spiritual studies. I am especially happy when the poems focus on my spiritual journey, as those in this volume do. I want to take sadness and turn it into joy, and I want to take anger and turn it into acceptance. But mostly, I want to acknowledge the beauty and mystery of God's presence in creation.


Jiggery Jee's Eden Valley Stories

Hello, my name is Jiggery-Jee. I live in Eden Valley. Eden Valley is located in the very center of the Land of the Imagination. Surrounding Eden Valley are such places as Tulip Grove, Carrot Valley, Bunnyville, Faultner Grove, and Flower Town. We have many residents in Eden Valley who came to the Valley from the surrounding places. They come here because Eden Valley is peaceful. All of the residents of Eden Valley work and play and live in an atmosphere of harmony. The weather is always perfect; the sun shines when we need sun, and the rain rains when we need rain. However, I must warn you that although things really are peaceful and harmonious in Eden Valley, sometimes they do not start out that way; we often have to work to make life peaceful and harmonious.
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