Knox Graduate Hiram Revels' Legacy Continues with the Election of Scott Colom as Mississippi’s First Black Senator in 150+ years

Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom made history on November 11, 2026, becoming the first Black U.S. senator from Mississippi in more than 150 years. Colom inherits a legacy that includes Mississippi's first Black senator, Knox graduate Hiram Revels 1857.

On February 25, 1870, Revels was sworn in as the first Black man to serve in the United States Senate, and of Mississippi. For his part, Revels saw himself as "a representative of the state, irrespective of color." Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts made the closing argument for Revels' admission, declaring: "All men are created equal, says the great Declaration, and now a great act attests to this verity. Today we make the Declaration a reality."

State legislators appointed Revels in 1870 to finish an unexpired term during Reconstruction, and he resigned the following year.

Born to free parents of African, Scottish, and Croatan Indian heritage in 1827, Revels spent his childhood in North Carolina, a state where it was illegal to educate Black children. Nonetheless, Revels attended a school run by a free Black woman and worked as an apprentice in his brother's barber shop. In 1844, Revels moved north to study at the Beech Grove Quaker Seminary in Liberty, Indiana; he would also study in Ohio and at Knox College.

Before and after his year in the Senate, Revels worked as a pastor. Revels also served as the first president of Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College, now Alcorn State University, one of the first public institutions of higher education established for Black students in Mississippi during Reconstruction. 

Five years after Revels was sworn in, Blanche K. Bruce took up the mantle. Another Mississippian, Bruce became the first Black senator elected to a full six-year term. Both served during Reconstruction, a time when Black Americans began to exercise political power in the South. 

Mississippi voters elected Colom as senator with a noteworthy win against incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith, after the race remained uncalled for more than a week. Colom will take office on January 3, 2027. 

Published on November 11, 2026

- Scott Holland, Knox College Office of Communications