Revels was born free on September 27, 1827 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to free people of color, parents of African and European ancestry. Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1827, of free parents, and went to Indiana in 1844.
Bent on becoming a clergyman, he studied at a Quaker seminary in Union County, Indiana, and at a black seminary in Drake County, Ohio.
He completed his formal education with a year, 1856-1857, at Knox College in Galeburg, IIl.
He also had noteworthy careers in the Christian ministry and school administration. Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1827, of free parents, and went to Indiana in 1844.
He did ministerial work in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland. With the coming of the Civil War, Revels assisted in raising black regiments in Maryland and St. Louis.
In 1864 he served as chaplain of a regiment at Vicksburg, Mississippi. After the war Revels settled in Mississippi and combined religion with politics. He served as an alderman in Natchez in 1868.
In 1869 he was elected to the state senate and immediately drew attention by the eloquent prayer he delivered at the opening session of that body. Thus propelled into the limelight, he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Jefferson Davis in the United States Senate.
Holding that seat from February 23, 1870, to March 3, 1871, Revels served on two committees--District of Columbia, and education and labor. Upon his return to Mississippi he served as interim secretary of state in 1873.
During his political life Revels showed a keen interest in school matters, always a major concern of his. As a pastor in Baltimore before the war he ran a day school in his church.
After nearly ten years of service he resigned in 1882 because of poor health. When his health improved, he moved to Holly Springs to serve as a district superintendent in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
He remained active in religious work until his death on January 16, 1901, in Aberdeen, Mississippi.
He became the first African American to serve in the United States Congress when he was elected to the United States Senate to represent Mississippi in 1870 and 1871 during the Reconstruction era.
During the American Civil War, Revels had helped organize two regiments of the United States Colored Troops and served as a chaplain. After serving in the Senate, Revels was appointed as the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Alcorn State University), 1871–1873 and 1876 to 1882. Later he served again as a minister.
He founded a school for former slaves, located in St. Louis, in 1863. After his term in the United States Senate he was appointed to the presidency of Alcorn University, at Rodney, Mississippi, a new state college for blacks.
By this time Revels was already working as a clergyman, having been ordained in the African Methodist Church in 1845.
Revels remained active as a Methodist Episcopal minister in Holly Springs, Mississippi and became an elder in the Upper Mississippi District.
Quotes from others about the person
As the Congressman John R. Lynch later wrote of him in his book on Reconstruction:
"Revels was comparatively a new man in the community. He had recently been stationed at Natchez as pastor in charge of the A. M. E. Church, and so far as known he had never voted, had never attended a political meeting, and of course, had never made a political speech. But he was a colored man, and presumed to be a Republican, and believed to be a man of ability and considerably above the average in point of intelligence; just the man, it was thought, the Rev. Noah Buchanan would be willing to vote for. "
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner said, "The time has passed for argument. Nothing more need be said. For a long time it has been clear that colored persons must be senators. " Sumner, a Republican, later said, “All men are created equal, says the great Declaration, and now a great act attests this verity. Today we make the Declaration a reality…. The Declaration was only half established by Independence. The greatest duty remained behind. In assuring the equal rights of all we complete the work. ”
He was married to Phoebe Bass.
