At least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting in 2021, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law limiting the number of drop boxes for ballots; in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning 24-hour and drive-thru voting. The laws came after record turnout in the 2020 election, including among African-American voters—and the Brennan Center’s research shows that the voter restrictions nationwide are more likely to impact African-American voters and minority voters. Historians say that this wave of laws making it harder to vote echo the backlash to the electoral gains made by African Americans during Reconstruction (1865-1877), the era of political revolution in the aftermath of the Civil War. The above video looks back at Black politicians who served at all levels of government about a century before the 1960s civil rights movement. “I think one of the reasons that it’s so timely to learn about Black political leaders during Reconstruction is because we have an unprecedented wave of new laws that are meant to suppress voters—specifically African-American voters—in some cases in order to ensure that African-American voices are not adequately heard in the political process,” says William Sturkey, associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina.
 “Reconstruction was the first time that this country tried to be an interracial democracy—or a democracy, in other words,” says Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and expert on Reconstruction. “It was the first time that African-American men… became part of the body politic, voted, held office. And key issues that are on our agenda today were fought out for the first time in Reconstruction.” In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, requiring new state governments to be set up based on universal suffrage in states that were part of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. New elections took place in 1867 and 1868. States like Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina were, at the time, close to a majority Black and elected Black men to statehouses and local positions for the first time. “When African Americans were prevented from voting, federal troops or federal investigators would often be called in in order to protect [their] rights in order to cast the ballot,” says Sturkey. Read more: Schools Are Failing to Teach Reconstruction, Report Says Foner, the author of Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction, estimates that about 2,000 Black Americans held public office at the local, state, and federal levels during Reconstruction. Among the notable Black officeholders in this era: Republican Hiram Revels of Mississippi, the first Black U.S. Senator, appointed by the Senate to fill a vacancy; Blanche K. Bruce, another Mississippi Republican who was the first Black U.S. Senator to serve a full term; Robert Smalls, who escaped enslavement and went on to serve five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives; and Jonathan Jasper Wright of South Carolina, the first state Supreme Court justice in the U.S. On Jan. 6, 1874, Robert B. Elliott, a Black Republican congressman from South Carolina, gave one of the most powerful speeches of the era in defense of what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1875. “What you give to one class you must give to all; what you deny to one class, you shall deny to all,” he said.
Historians say one of Black officeholders’ biggest contribution was their role in establishing state-sponsored public schools. Black lawmakers made up a majority of delegates at the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention, which greenlit tax-funded public schools. Similarly, half of the delegates were Black at the Louisiana constitutional convention, which wrote integrated public schools into the new state Constitution. (Though most of the schools remained segregated.) “The southern states were required to write new constitutions by the Reconstruction Acts of 1867… that allow Black and white men to vote and hold office. These new constitutions [also] included provisions for public education systems in the South,” says Foner. “Black officeholders played a key role in the creation of public education in the South.” But Black officeholder numbers started to decline after 1877. As part of a deal to settle the contested 1876 presidential election, Ohio Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in exchange for the removal of federal troops in the South that had helped protect Black voters. In subsequent elections, Ku Klux Klan and vigilante violence at poll stations drove Black Americans away from the ballot boxes. Some Reconstruction state governments were overthrown, and the new state governments passed restrictive voting laws in what became known as the Jim Crow era. While the 15th Amendment of the Constitution said states couldn’t restrict voting based on race, state legislators passed laws that mandated expensive poll taxes (fees to vote) and literacy tests (questions with no right answers)—and subjected African Americans to them more than white Americans. It wasn’t until nearly a century later when the 1965 Voting Rights Act made literacy tests and poll taxes illegal. Read more: How Reconstruction Still Shapes American Racism One reason the Black political leaders of Reconstruction aren’t often taught in U.S. K-12 schools is because the backlash to the Black officeholders during Reconstruction contradicts the narrative that America has improved with each generation, Sturkey says. “It’s a little bit tricky to teach Reconstruction because African Americans during Reconstruction could vote in much of the South, and then things actually got a lot worse. It doesn’t really fit into this narrative of constant progress throughout America since the Civil War,” says Sturkey. “I think that a lot of people don’t realize that Black people actually could vote for a period of time and had lost it again and then had to fight for it again during the Civil Rights movement.” Foner says Black political leadership provides a fuller picture of the diverse range of change-makers in the United States. The stories of Black officeholders during Reconstruction, he says, are important “for students of all backgrounds to understand that African Americans have always played a crucial role in American history.”
The Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 freed African Americans in rebel states, and after the Civil War, the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated all U.S. slaves wherever they were. As a result, the mass of Southern blacks now faced the difficulty Northern blacks had confronted—that of a free people surrounded by many hostile whites. One freedman, Houston Hartsfield Holloway, wrote, “For we colored people did not know how to be free and the white people did not know how to have a free colored person about them.” Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, two more years of war, service by African American troops, and the defeat of the Confederacy, the nation was still unprepared to deal with the question of full citizenship for its newly freed black population. The Reconstruction implemented by Congress, which lasted from 1866 to 1877, was aimed at reorganizing the Southern states after the Civil War, providing the means for readmitting them into the Union, and defining the means by which whites and blacks could live together in a nonslave society. The South, however, saw Reconstruction as a humiliating, even vengeful imposition and did not welcome it. During the years after the war, black and white teachers from the North and South, missionary organizations, churches and schools worked tirelessly to give the emancipated population the opportunity to learn. Former slaves of every age took advantage of the opportunity to become literate. Grandfathers and their grandchildren sat together in classrooms seeking to obtain the tools of freedom. After the Civil War, with the protection of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, African Americans enjoyed a period when they were allowed to vote, actively participate in the political process, acquire the land of former owners, seek their own employment, and use public accommodations. Opponents of this progress, however, soon rallied against the former slaves' freedom and began to find means for eroding the gains for which many had shed their blood. Back to top Black Exodus
During Reconstruction freed slaves began to leave the South. One such group, originally from Kentucky, established the community of Nicodemus in 1877 in Graham County on the high, arid plains of northwestern Kansas. However, because of several crop failures and resentment from the county's white settlers, all but a few homesteaders abandoned their claims. A rising population of 500 in 1880 had declined to less than 200 by 1910. A page of photographs and a township map from a 1906 county land ownership atlas provide evidence that some of these black migrants still owned land in and around this small village. Their impressive determination in an area with few good natural resou rces has resulted in the only surviving all-black community in Kansas.
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African American population distribution and migration patterns can be traced using maps published in the statistical atlases prepared by the U. S. Census Bureau for each decennial census from 1870 to 1920. The atlas for the 1890 census includes this map showing the percentage of “colored” to the total population for each county. Although the heaviest concentrations are overwhelmingly in Maryland, Virginia, and the southeastern states, there appear to be emerging concentrations in the northern urban areas (New York City, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, and Chicago), southern Ohio, central Missouri, eastern Kansas, and scattered areas in the West (Oklahoma, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California), reflecting migration patterns that began during Reconstruction. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj5 Back to top Fruits of Reconstruction
Prior to the Civil War, slave states had laws forbidding literacy for the enslaved. Thus, by emancipation, only a small percentage of African Americans knew how to read and write. There was such motivation in the African American community, however, and enough good will among white and black teachers, that by the turn of the twentieth century the majority of African Americans could read and write. Many teachers commented that their classrooms were filled with both young and old, grandfathers with their children and grandchildren, all eager to learn. In this image, one aged man is reading a newspaper with the headline, “Presidential Proclamation, Slavery.” Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj7
Northern teachers, many of whom were white women, traveled into the South to provide education and training for the newly freed population. Schools from the elementary level through college provided a variety of opportunities, from the rudiments of reading and writing and various types of basic vocational training to classics, arts, and theology. This school in Richmond shows women of color learning the fine points of sewing. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj8
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, ratified March 30, 1870, provided that all male citizens were entitled to vote. Because the black population was so large in many parts of the South, whites were fearful of their participation in the political process. Nevertheless, the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress were determined that African Americans be accorded all of the rights of citizenship. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj9
A series of tours by the Fisk Jubilee Singers was one of the most important factors in the spread of the spiritual. The first tour in 1871 was to raise money for Fisk University. It was the hearing of these spirituals as sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers that first made general audiences conscious of their beauty. The first collection of the Fisk Singers' spirituals was published in 1872. An expanded and reset collection appeared in 1875 as an appendix to a history of the Jubilee Singers. These editions, which were sold as souvenirs at concerts, spread the spirituals in print as the Jubilee Singers themselves spread them in performance. This publication includes only a single spiritual sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, although the Library's music collections include many recordings of the Singers, as well as published music.
“I Am the Door.” From Songs of the Jubilee Singers from Fisk University. Sheet music. Cincinnati: John Church & Co., 1884. Music Division, Library of Congress (5–16) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj10
Published by the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, this broadside is illustrated with a picture of “Sea-island School, No 1—St. Helena Island [South Carolina], Established April, 1862.” May 1863 letters from teachers at St. Helena Island describe their young students as “the prettiest little things you ever saw, with solemn little faces, and eyes like stars.” Vacations seemed a hardship to these students, who were so anxious to improve their reading and writing that they begged not to “be punished so again.” Voluntary contributions from various organizations aided fourteen hundred teachers in providing literacy and vocational education for 150,000 freedmen. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj11
In order to regulate the activities of newly freed African Americans, national, state, and local governments developed a body of laws relating to them. Some laws were for their protection, particularly those relating to labor contracts, but others circumscribed their citizenship rights. This volume, compiled by the staff of General Oliver O. Howard, the director of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands—usually called the Freedmen's Bureau—provides a digest of these laws in ten of the former Confederate states up to 1867.
Laws in Relation to Freedmen, U.S. Sen. 39th Congress, 2nd Sess. Senate Executive Doc. No. 6. Washington: War Department, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866-67. Pamphlet. Law Library, Library of Congress (5–17) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj13
The only two African Americans to serve as United States Senators in the nineteenth century were Blanche K. Bruce and Hiram Revels, both of Mississippi. Frederick Douglass was appointed to several important governmental positions in the years after the Civil War, including Minister Resident and Counsel General to Haiti, Recorder of Deeds, and U. S. Marshall. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj14
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of color or previous condition of servitude. African Americans became involved in the political process not only as voters but also as governmental representatives at the local, state and national level. Although their elections were often contested by whites, and members of the legislative bodies were usually reluctant to receive them, many African American men ably served their country during Reconstruction. Pictured here are Senator Hiram R. Revels and Representatives Benjamin S. Turner, Josiah T. Walls, Joseph H. Rainey, Robert Brown Elliot, Robert D. De Large, and Jefferson H. Long. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj15
This lithograph depicts not only African American leaders during Reconstruction, but also forebears who had distinguished themselves in earlier years of American history, such as Richard Allen, founding pastor and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Also pictured are Frederick Douglass, Robert Brown Elliot, Blanche K. Bruce, William Wells Brown, Richard T. Greener, Josiah H. Rainey, Ebenezer D. Bassett, John Mercer Langston, P.B.S. Pinchback, and Henry Highland Garnett. These men served in a variety of positions, as government officials, politicians, ministers, educators, diplomats, lawyers, and businessmen. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj16 Back to top The Role of the Black Church
In many African American communities, large and small, the social, political, and economic life of the people centered around the church. The pastor was often the community leader, teacher, and business strategist. Families often spent many hours at the church each week or when the preacher came to their community, sometimes only once or twice a month. Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj17
This pamphlet discusses the history of this African American denomination, educational efforts among people of color in Ohio, and other issues vital to the African American community during Reconstruction. It provides important historical data about the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), especially in Cincinnati, discusses the church's diverse ministries, and outlines the denomination's numerous uplifting and charitable endeavors in the Cincinnati community. There is also historical information about Wilberforce University in Ohio, an institution of higher education purchased by the A.M.E. Church in 1863.
Proceedings of the Semi-centenary Celebration of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Cincinnati . . . February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1874. Edited by Rev. B. W. Arnett. Cincinnati: H. Watkin, 1874. Daniel A.P. Murray Pamphlet Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress (5–3) Bookmark this item: //www.loc.gov/exhibits/african-american-odyssey/reconstruction.html#obj18
A group of Ohioans, including four African American men, established Wilberforce University near Xenia, Ohio, in 1856, and named it after the famous British abolitionist, William Wilberforce. When the school failed to meet its financial obligations, leaders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church purchased it in 1863. The articles of association of Wilberforce University, dated July 10, 1863, state that its purpose was “to promote education, religion and morality amongst the colored race.” Even though the university was established by and for people of color, the articles stipulated that no one should “be excluded from the benefits of said institution as officers, faculty, or pupils on account of merely race or color.”
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