On February 25, 1870, Hiram Rhoades Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Mississippi, was sworn in as a U.S. senator, becoming the first African American ever to sit in Congress. Revels was elected by the Mississippi legislature to fill the Senate seat once held by Jefferson Davis, the former president of the Confederacy. Revels and some 15 other African American men served in Congress during Reconstruction, more than 600 served in state legislatures, and hundreds of held local offices.
