MS SC639

Recognizes the legacy of United States Senator Hiram Revels, the first African-American to serve in Congress and first President of Alcorn State University

Details Revels' life from his birth in Fayetteville, North Carolina on September 27, 1827, through his education in the North, ordination in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845, and settlement in Natchez, Mississippi in 1866

Notes that Revels was elected to the Mississippi State Senate in 1869 and subsequently elected by the state legislature on January 20, 1870 to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat, serving until March 3, 1871

States that Revels became the first President of Alcorn University (formerly Oakland College) after his Senate term and later served as interim Secretary of State of Mississippi in 1873, before returning to the ministry and dying in Aberdeen, Mississippi on January 16, 1901

Directs the State Superintendent of Education to distribute this resolution during Black History Month and make it available to the Capitol Press Corps