Revels served in the Senate for 13 months. Born in Georgetown, South Carolina, to a slave who was allowed to buy freedom for himself and his family, Rainey lived in Philadelphia and then Bermuda ...

In 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Natchez, Miss., was sworn into the U.S. Senate, becoming the first Black American to sit in Congress. In 1901, the United States Steel Corp. was ...