No photos exist of Andrew Revelation Rhodes, but a series of articles in the Pantagraph draw his picture. I first became aware of Revie, as he was called, when researching window trimmers in Bloomington.
In 1949, A R Rhoades ran for Ward 3 Alderman and his bio was printed in the Pantagraph. There it was stated that he was a window decorator for S W Hayes, a hatchery man who lived on Country Club Place. At the same time, Rhoades had been a self employed sign maker for twenty years. He had been the editor of the Bloomington Co-operative News for ten years, between 1927 and 1937. Revelation had also worked as a chauffeur in Bloomington and a song and dance man and advertising manager in Chicago.
The bio was a little unusual for a public official, in that Rhodes' employment history included a 20 year stint as a chauffeur and song and dance man. He was the son of a painter and paper hanger who came to Bloomington in the early 1900s with a family of 6 children. Revelation was born in 1891, but we don't know the date of his death. Revelation's brother Simon was a political activist in Chicago, and while in Chicago Revelation
may have decided to try his own hand at activism. The Bloomington Cooperative News was first published in September of 1927. It started as a 4 page newspaper for the Negros of Bloomington, and Revelation planned to expand it to eight pages. Articles were written for it by the Negro high schoolers and college students in Bloomington and Normal. His brother Simon was a contributor to the Chicago Defender and the Chicago Sun, both papers for Negroes at that time. During the 20s and 30s Revelation organized dances in support of the Bloomington Co-operative.
The Rhoades family did not appear often in the Pantagraph and lived a quiet life at 1006 South Livingston Avenue. Although Revelation said he was a bachelor at the time of his political foray, a Chicago marriage record for him and a Miss Elsie Wilson was filed in July of 1911. His public history also included and arrest: on July 12, 1916 Revelation was arrested for disorderly conduct with a couple of Negro women in Bloomington. The three had been working together at a performance in an "uptown lodge hall" and had a dispute on the street about the division of two 50 cent tips that had been given to the women. The argument became loud and the police arrived to arrest all three. 1918 was not a good year for Revelation Rhoades. In March he was apprehended in the Greisheim department store in the middle of the night by a police officer who found him with a stash of clothing he was trying to burgle. The paper noted that he was "capable of putting on ragtime so effectively as to bring on delirium tremens" but could not burgle worth a darn. Revelation also performed in a very popular show at the Louis E Davis VFW Post in the 20s.
Sadly, no issues of the Bloomington Co-operative are publicly available.