BRUCE, Blanche Kelso | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives
The House history site's biography traces Blanche Kelso Bruce from enslavement in Virginia to the US Senate, where the Mississippi Republican served from 1875 to 1881 as the second Black Senator, the first to serve a full six-year term, and the first to preside over the Senate or chair a committee. It covers his advocacy for Black civil rights and Black Civil War veterans' backpay, his investigation of the Freedman's Bank, and his later posts as Register of the Treasury and DC recorder of deeds before his 1898 death.
