WILLIAM HOWARD DAY.
As a student at Oberlin College, William Howard Day stood well, and graduated with honors. He resided some years at Cleveland, Ohio, where, for a time, he published a weekly newspaper, which rendered timely and efficient service to the cause of freedom, and the elevation of the colored people of that State. In 1856 or 1857, he visited England, where he was much admired for his scholarly attainments, and truly genuine eloquence. On his return home, Mr. Day became associate editor of the “Zion’s Standard and Weekly Review.” He now resides at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he publishes “Our National Progress,” a paper devoted to the cause of reform, and the elevation of man.
As a speaker, Mr. Day may be regarded as one of the most effective of the present time; has great self-possession, and gaiety of imagination; is rich in the selection of his illustrations, well versed in history, literature, science, and philosophy, and can draw on his finely-stored memory at will. As a writer, Mr. Day is far above newspaper editors generally, exhibiting much care and thought in many of his articles. As a speaker and writer, he has done a good work for his race.
He is a mulatto of ordinary size, has a large and well-balanced head, high forehead, bright eyes, intellectual and pleasing countenance, genteel figure, and is what the ladies would call “a handsome man.” Mr. Day, besides his editorial duties, holds a responsible and lucrative office in the State Department of Pennsylvania, which he fills with honor to himself, and profit to the State.
HIRAM R. REVELS, D. D.
Dr. Revels is a native of North Carolina, where, at Fayetteville, Cumberland County, he was born, a freeman, on the first of September, A. D., 1822. Passing his boyhood and youth, until about twenty-one years of age, in North Carolina, he went to northern Indiana, the laws of his native state forbidding colored schools. The parents of the lad had been permitted to prepare him somewhat for an education, and he had been studying, off and on, some years previous to leaving for the North. He passed two years in Indiana, attending a Quaker school, and then removed to Dark County, Ohio, where he remained for some time, and subsequently graduated at Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois; and after that, entered the ministry as a preacher of the gospel under the auspices of the Methodist Church. At this time he was twenty-five years of age. His first charge was in Indiana. From entering the service of the church to the present time he has steadily persevered as a preacher, and is well known as a practical Christian and a zealous and eloquent expounder of the word.
After some years in Indiana, he filled important posts in Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, and Kansas, in the cause of the African M. E. Church. He was in Maryland in 1861, at the breaking out of the war, and materially aided in forming in that State the first Maryland colored regiment. He was also able to assist in Missouri in raising the first colored regiment in that State, and returned to Mississippi in 1864, settling in Vicksburg, where he had charge of a church congregation, and assisted in organizing other churches, and in forming and putting into operation the school system, visiting various portions of the State on his own responsibility, and among other places, preaching in Jackson. His health failing, Dr. Revels went to the North once more, after the close of hostilities, where he remained eighteen months. Returning, he located at Natchez, where he preached regularly to a large congregation, and where General Ames, then military governor, appointed him to the position of alderman. In 1869, he was duly elected to the State Senate.
In January, 1870, Dr. Revels was selected to represent Mississippi in the United States Senate, the announcement of which took the country by surprise, and as the time drew near for the colored senator to appear in his place in Congress, the interest became intense. Many who had heard reconstruction discussed in its length and breadth,—by men of prophetic power and eloquent utterance, by men of merely logical and judicial minds, by men narrow and selfish, as well as those sophistical and prejudiced,—and who had no particular interest in the debates, still came day after day, hoping to see qualified for his seat in the senate the first colored man presenting himself for so high an office, the first to be in eminent civil service in the general government.