Interesting topic. Would have been nice to see Reconstruction go beyond 1877.

. . . and a few may well have been characters, but the sum of these men were interesting, well versed in science, art, and literature, and did, indeed, portend a promising future for their efforts. Alas . . .



Mississippi Republican Hiram Revels captivated a nation in the midst of social upheaval following the Civil War


The Senate galleries were packed, filled with both black and white spectators, and a murmur filled the air as the nation's first black member of Congress, Sen. Hiram Revels, stood to deliver his first speech to the chamber.

Nearly 140 years before Sen. Barack Obama's historic quest to become the nation's first black president, Revels captivated a nation in the midst of social upheaval following the Civil War. The date was March 16, 1870, less than five years after the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.

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"He had a persona, sort of in a weird way, like Obama, in that he didn't really run as a race man," said Eric Foner, a historian at New York's Columbia University.

Revels became something of a celebrity senator, going on lecture tours in the North and West. In Boston, abolitionist Wendell Phillips introduced Revels as the "15th Amendment in flesh and blood," referring to the constitutional change guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race.

"An astonishing ovation followed his footsteps in New England," The Washington Post said in a 1901 obituary. "Men and women of letters and public functionaries and university educators greeted him with enthusiasm as though a new prophet had arisen in the land."