On this day in 1870, a Black politician was seated in the United States Senate for the first time, but only after Republican leaders rebuffed a challenge based on the infamous Dred Scott decision. Hiram Rhodes Revels’s path to the Senate floor took him through numerous states as a freed black man born in North Carolina, schooled in Indiana and Ohio, and as a preacher and educator in Kansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Revels also served in the Civil War as a chaplain and he was at the battles of Vicksburg and Jackson in Mississippi. After the war, he settled in Natchez, Mississippi, continuing his educational and religious works. But Revels slowly became involved in politics, first as a local alderman in 1868, and then as a member of the Mississippi state senate in the state’s Reconstruction-era government in 1869. Revels caught the attention of leaders in the state Senate after he gave an inspirational prayer to open a session in January 1870. That session soon turned to the serious business of electing two U.S. Senators from Mississippi, to be sent to Washington after Mississippi was readmitted as a state in the Union. (In that era, state legislatures elected U.S. Senators until the 17th Amendment went into effect.) Seen as a moderate and as an educated man, Revels was put up for nomination and elected to the U.S. Senate by an 81 to 15 vote. He would fill the unexpired term of a Senator who quit in 1861, which ended in March 1871. However, when Revels arrived in Washington in late January 1870, it was clear he would have opposition from people who objected to a Black person serving in the U.S. Senate. There were still a handful of Southern Democrats in Congress and they raised several barriers. The first argument was that a Senate candidate had to be a United States citizen for at least nine years before assuming office. This logic pointed to the Supreme Court’s controversial Dred Scott decision from 1857, which was interpreted to state that Blacks of African-American ancestry weren’t American citizens and that Revels had only been a citizen since the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868. Another argument was that Mississippi was still under military rule and a civilian government needed to confirm Revel’s election. The issue came to a head on February 23, 1871, when Mississippi was officially admitted back into the Union, and a floor vote came up to seat Revels in the Senate. After two days of debate, the vote came to seat Revels. In an account from the New York Times, the historic nature of the moment was apparent. “Mr. Revels, the colored Senator from Mississippi, was sworn in and admitted to his seat this afternoon at 4:40 o'clock. There was not an inch of standing or sitting room in the galleries, so densely were they packed; and to say that the interest was intense gives but a faint idea of the feeling which prevailed throughout the entire proceeding,” the Times said. Republicans cut off objections from the southern Democrats, and the vote was 48-8 to let Revels take his Senate seat. “The ceremony was short. Mr. Revels showed no embarrassment whatever, and his demeanor was as dignified as could be expected under the circumstances. The abuse which had been poured upon him and on his race during the last two days might well have shaken the nerves of any one,” the Times said. Three weeks later, Revels gave his first speech to a packed Senate gallery about fears that Georgia would forbid blacks from holding public office using language that was part of its deal to gain admittance back to the Union. “I remarked that I rose to plead for protection for the defenseless race that now sends their delegation to the seat of Government to sue for that which this Congress alone can secure to them. And here let me say further, that the people of the North owe to the colored race a deep obligation that is no easy matter to fulfill,” he said. In his brief Senate career, Revels was seen as a moderate who opposed segregation and supported civil rights, but he also wanted amnesty for former Confederate soldiers. Revels chose not to seek more time in the Senate, and he left Washington in March 1871 to become the first president of what became Alcorn University, the first land grant school for African-Americans in the United States. Revels remained active in the religious and educational communities for the rest of his life. He died on January 16, 1901, as he was attending a religious conference. In 1875, Blanche Kelso Bruce, also of Mississippi and of African-American descent, was elected to the Senate and served a full six-year term. It would be another 92 years until Edward Brooke of Massachusetts became the third black to win a seat in the U.S. Senate. Cory A. Booker
Cory Booker (D-NJ) became the first African American to represent New Jersey in the United States Senate on October 31, 2013. Born in Washington, D.C., he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Stanford before attending The Queen’s College, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, as a Rhodes Scholar, where he received a graduate degree in 1994. Booker then attended Yale Law School, earning his juris doctor degree in 1997. He served on the Newark City Council from 1998 to 2002 and then as mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013. Booker was elected to the United States Senate in a special election on October 16, 2013, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Frank Lautenberg, a seat subsequently held by appointed senator Jeffrey Chiesa, and took the oath of office on October 31, 2013, for the term ending January 3, 2015. He was elected to a full term in November 2014, and reelected in November 2020. (Photo: Senate Historical Office) The United States House of Representatives has had 156 elected African-American members, of whom 150 have been representatives from U.S. states and 6 have been delegates from U.S. territories and the District of Columbia.[1] The House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral United States Congress, which is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the term "African American" includes all individuals who identify with one or more nationalities or ethnic groups originating in any of the black racial groups of Africa.[2] The term is generally used for Americans with at least partial ancestry in any of the original peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. During the founding of the federal government, African Americans were consigned to a status of second-class citizenship or enslaved.[3] No African American served in federal elective office before the ratification in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Fifteenth Amendment prohibits the federal and state governments from denying any citizen the right to vote because of that citizen's race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Joseph Rainey was the first African-American representative to be seated in the U.S. House. He served South Carolina's 1st congressional district beginning in 1870 during the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War. The first African-American woman to serve as a representative was Shirley Chisholm from New York's 12th congressional district in 1969 during the Civil Rights Movement. Many African-American members of the House of Representatives serve majority-minority districts.[4] Some of these congressional districts are gerrymandered, limiting serious challenges to their re-election, and limiting their abilities to represent a larger, more diverse constituency.[4] The Voting Rights Act of 1965 includes restrictions on the ability of States to diminish minority representation during redistricting. In the elections of 2016 and 2018, an increasing number of non-majority-minority districts have elected racial minority representatives. Overall, 30 of the 50 U.S. states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia, have elected an African American to represent them in the U.S. House of Representatives, with Washington being the most recent to elect their first (in 2020); out of these, 21 states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia, have elected an African-American woman to represent them in the U.S. House. Illinois's 1st congressional district has the longest continuous streak of electing African-American representatives, a tendency which has occurred since 1929 to the present. There currently are 56 African-American representatives and two African-American delegates in the United States House of Representatives, representing 28 states, plus the U.S. Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia. Most are members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
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Page 2You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reasons: You can view and copy the source of this page: ==List of states represented by African-Americans or black people== {| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:center" |- ! State ! Current members ! Previous members ! Total ! First black member ! Political party of first black member ! Years with black members |- | [[Alabama]] || 1 || 5 || 6 || [[Benjamin S. Turner]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1871–1877, 1993–present |- | [[Alaska]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Arizona]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Arkansas]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[California]] || 3 || 9 || 12 || [[Augustus F. Hawkins]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1963–present |- | [[Colorado]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Joe Neguse]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2019–present |- | [[Connecticut]] || 1 || 1 || 2 || [[Gary Franks]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1991–1997, 2019–present |- | [[Delaware]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Lisa Blunt Rochester]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2017–present |- | [[Florida]] || 5 || 6 || 11 || [[Josiah T. Walls]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1871–1876, 1993–present |- | [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] || 5 || 6 || 11 || [[Jefferson F. Long]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1871, 1973–1977, 1987–present |- | [[Hawaii]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Idaho]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Illinois]] || 4 || 12 || 16 || [[Oscar Stanton DePriest]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1929–present |- | [[Indiana]] || 1 || 2 || 3 || [[Katie Hall (American politician)|Katie Hall]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1982–1985, 1997–present |- | [[Iowa]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Kansas]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Kentucky]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Louisiana]] || 1 || 4 || 5 || [[Charles E. Nash]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1875–1877, 1991–2009, 2011–present |- | [[Maine]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Maryland]] || 2 || 4 || 6 || [[Parren Mitchell]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1971–present |- | [[Massachusetts]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Ayanna Pressley]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2019–present |- | [[Michigan]] || 1 || 7 || 8 || [[Charles Diggs]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1955–present |- | [[Minnesota]] || 1 || 1 || 2 || [[Keith Ellison]] || {{Party shading/Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor}}|Democratic–Farmer–Labor || 2007–present |- | [[Mississippi]] || 1 || 2 || 3 || [[John R. Lynch]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1873–1877, 1882–1883, 1987–present |- | [[Missouri]] || 2 || 3 || 5 || [[Bill Clay]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1969–present |- | [[Montana]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Nebraska]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Nevada]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Steven Horsford]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2013–2015, 2019–present |- | [[New Hampshire]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[New Jersey]] || 2 || 1 || 3 || [[Donald M. Payne]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1989–present |- | [[New Mexico]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[New York (state)|New York]] || 6 || 7 || 13 || [[Adam Clayton Powell Jr.]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1945–present |- | [[North Carolina]] || 2 || 7 || 9 || [[John Adams Hyman]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1875–1877, 1883–1887, 1889–1893, 1897–1901, 1992–present |- | [[North Dakota]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Ohio]] || 2 || 3 || 5 || [[Louis Stokes]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1969–present |- | [[Oklahoma]] || 0 || 1 || 1 || [[J.C. Watts]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1995–2003 |- | [[Oregon]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Pennsylvania]] || 1 || 4 || 5 || [[Robert N. C. Nix Sr.]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1958–present |- | [[Rhode Island]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[South Carolina]] || 1 || 9 || 10 || [[Joseph Rainey]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1870–1879, 1882–1887, 1890–1891, 1893–1897, 1993–present |- | [[South Dakota]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Tennessee]] || 0 || 2 || 2 || [[Harold Ford Sr.]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1975–2007 |- | [[Texas]] || 5 || 4 || 9 || [[Barbara Jordan]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 1973–present |- | [[Utah]] || 1 || 1 || 2 || [[Mia Love]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 2015–2019, 2021–present |- | [[Vermont]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Virginia]] || 2 || 1 || 3 || [[John Mercer Langston]] || {{Party shading/Republican}}|Republican || 1890–1891, 1993–present |- | [[Washington (state)|Washington]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Marilyn Strickland]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2021–present |- | [[West Virginia]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |- | [[Wisconsin]] || 1 || 0 || 1 || [[Gwen Moore]] || {{Party shading/Democratic}}|Democratic || 2005–present |- | [[Wyoming]] || 0 || 0 || 0 || || || |}Return to List of African-American United States representatives. |