The Surprising History of US Black Senators
Against all odds and one year before the 15th Amendment certified minorities the right to vote, the first Black male senator was appointed to serve in US Congress
The wounds of the Civil War were still fresh in 1869. The Reconstruction Era was in its infancy. In the form of Black Codes, the seeds of Jim Crow laws were starting to take root.
Yet against all odds and one year before the 15th Amendment certified minorities the right to vote, the first Black male senator, Hiram Rhodes Revels of Mississippi, was appointed to serve in the Senate (and in the heavily segregated state of Mississippi, no less).
It’s possibly surprising to some that the story of US Black senators dates back to the Reconstruction Era. And indeed, for nearly 90 years—between 1881 and 1967—there were no Black senators in the US. Jim Crow laws, gerrymandering, and other disenfranchisement tactics came together to suppress the Black vote as much as possible across the US.
The rarity of Black senators in the US is such that, even today, there is still history to be made for Black people getting elected to and serving in the US Senate.
Who Was the First Black Senator?
Those states that seceded from the Union prior to the Civil War lost their seats in Congress. This caused the House and Senate to lose 85 members in short order. Upon rejoining after the South surrendered to the North, those states were granted their seats back. As a result, both the House and the Senate gained Black representation for the first time.
Hiram Rhodes Revels made history in 1869 when the Mississippi State Senate elected him to fill the vacant seat in the US Senate. Revels faced stiff opposition from southern Democrats who argued, among other things, that the 14th Amendment should not cover the Black senator because he was born prior to its enactment and was, therefore, not a citizen under the earlier Dred Scott decision.
The Democrats’ opposition was easily defeated. In a party-line vote of 48 to 8, Senate Republicans defeated Democratic opposition, cementing Revels’ place in history as the first Black senator in US history.
How Many Black Senators Are There?
As of 2021, there have been a total of 12 Black senators serving in the US Senate. As noted above, Revels was the first Black man appointed to serve in the US senate. His appointment predated popular voting of US senators in the US, which did not begin nationwide until 1914.
However, one may want to count P. B. S. Pinchback, as well. Also, the first Black American to become the governor of a US state (Louisiana), Pinchback was elected to the US Senate in 1873, but was denied the right to take his seat. However, he would later serve in the House of Representatives for one term.
Following Revels was Blanche Kelso Bruce, a former slave, and the first Black senator to serve a full term. Bruce was also appointed to the Senate in the deeply segregated southern state of Mississippi in the 1870s. Additionally, it is notable that Bruce would serve three terms in the US Senate.
However, Bruce would also be the last Black senator to take office until 1967. After federal actions that included the Civil Rights Act of 1964 began to unravel, Jim Crow-era laws suppressed the Black vote and Black representation in the Senate. Meanwhile, the 113th Congress (2013-2015) marked the first time that the US Senate had more than one Black Senator. Cory Booker, William (Mo) Cowan, and Tim Scott made history at that time.
Who Was the First Black Female Senator?
In 1993, Carol Moseley Braun became the first Black woman elected to the US senate. Before this, Braun served in the US House of Representatives for over a decade (1979 to 1998). She was among just a small handful of Black female congresswomen when she was elected, having followed in the direct footsteps of New York City’s Shirley Chisholm.
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