Reconstruction

1865 to 1877

We were free. Then they went to work taking it back.

In November 1865, months after the war, Mississippi made it a crime for a Black man to be without a labor contract, bound our children out as "apprentices," and let sheriffs hire out Black prisoners. Slavery had been gone for months, and they were already writing it back in.

For a few short years, the law stood with us. We were made citizens by the 14th Amendment in 1868. In 1870, the 15th Amendment promised that the vote would not be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," and Mississippi sent Hiram Revels to the United States Senate.

We trusted a bank Congress made for us. When the Freedman's Savings Bank closed in 1874, 61,144 of us lost nearly $3 million.

Read this era for the pattern. Every time we stepped forward, they pushed us back, and the nation looked away. In 1877, it stopped looking at all.

Tap Next to read each record. Every fact in them carries a small [Source] mark. Tap it to see where the fact comes from.

We don't need to raise our voice. The truth, told exactly, is enough.

1865 Proven

The Black Codes

Slavery ended in law. Within months, they wrote new laws to bring it back under another name.

In November 1865, months after the war ended, Mississippi passed its Black Codes. ^[Source 1]

The law said every freedman "shall have a lawful home or employment, and shall have a written evidence thereof." One without it could be jailed as a vagrant, without a jury. One who left a job before the contract ended lost the wages already earned, and the state paid rewards for catching those who quit. ^{[Source 2] [Source 1]}

Black children whose parents were judged too poor to keep them were bound out as "apprentices": boys until 21, girls until 18. They took our children. ^{[Source 3] [Source 1]}

Freedmen could not "rent or lease any lands or tenements, except in incorporated towns or cities." Sheriffs could hire out Black prisoners, and the employers paid the sheriffs. ^{[Source 3] [Source 1]}

Remember the exception in the 13th Amendment: "except as a punishment for crime." This is the road they took through it.

1866 Proven

The Memphis Massacre

Our soldiers came home from the war. The police of Memphis came for them.

On 30 April 1866, the 3rd U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery was mustered out at Memphis, Tennessee. Fighting broke out between Black veterans and Irish policemen. ^[Source 1]

Gangs of police and armed white men then set upon the Black people of the city, again and again, for thirty-six hours. ^[Source 1]

By 3 May, they had killed 46 Black men, women and children, and hurt at least 75 more. Congress's own report counted 91 houses and cabins, 4 churches and 12 schoolhouses burned. ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

Three federal investigations heard Black witnesses who could not testify in the local courts. No official was ever held to account. ^[Source 1]

They had just finished fighting for this country. Their own city's police hunted them for it.

1866 Proven

The Southern Homestead Act

They offered us land. They made sure most of us could never reach it.

On 21 June 1866, one year after the war, Congress opened the public land of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida to homesteaders. ^[Source 1] It came to 46 million acres. ^[Source 2]

For the first year, it was reserved for Black people and loyal whites. But the freed people were bound by year-long labor contracts, and most states had only one land office, weeks away. After that first year, former Confederates could claim it too. ^[Source 2]

Much of the land could not be farmed: thick woods and swamps, far from any road or railroad. ^[Source 2]

A door held open for one year, at the end of a road we could not walk. That was the offer.

1866 Proven

The New Orleans Massacre

We gathered to ask for the vote. The police answered with guns.

In 1866, Louisiana's governor reopened the state's constitutional convention to give the vote to all men, Black and white. ^[Source 1]

On 30 July 1866, the delegates met at the Mechanics' Institute in New Orleans. City police and a mob attacked them and the Black people gathered outside. Policemen fired through the windows. ^[Source 1]

The convention's chaplain was shot dead while waving a white handkerchief in surrender. ^[Source 1]

The Union general in command, Philip Sheridan, wired General Grant: "About forty whites and blacks were thus killed, and about one hundred and sixty wounded." ^[Source 2]

The next day he wired again: "It was no riot. It was an absolute massacre by the police." ^[Source 3]

Remember his words the next time you hear the word "riot" used about us.

1868 Proven

Leased Like Slaves

Here is the 13th Amendment's exception at work. Slavery by another name, run by the State of Georgia.

Three years after slavery ended, on 11 May 1868, Georgia signed its first contract to lease out its prisoners. It sent 100 of them to the Georgia and Alabama Railroad for one year, for $2,500. ^[Source 1]

Every one of them was Black. The agreement, signed by the military governor, General Thomas Ruger, promised "one hundred able-bodied and healthy Negro convicts." ^{[Source 2] [Source 1]}

Not convicts. "Negro convicts." The State had found a way to sell our labor again.

1868 Proven

The 14th Amendment

This amendment made us citizens. Read the last part too.

Congress passed the 14th Amendment on 13 June 1866. It was ratified in July 1868. ^[Source 1]

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." ^[Source 1]

No state could "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." ^[Source 1]

It also barred the nation and the states from paying "any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave." The slaveholders of the South would not be paid for us. ^[Source 1]

The Constitution closed the door on paying slaveholders. It said nothing at all about paying the people who had been held.

1868 Proven

The Original 33

Georgia elected us. Then Georgia threw us out.

In 1868, Georgia's legislature took its seats with thirty Black representatives and three Black senators. They became known as the Original 33. ^[Source 1]

In September 1868, the white lawmakers of both parties moved to remove them. On 3 September, Henry McNeal Turner, one of the 33, rose in the House: "I hold that I am a member of this body." ^[Source 2]

"I am here to demand my rights," he said. "The great question, sir, is this: Am I a man?" ^{[Source 3] [Source 4]}

The white lawmakers voted to remove all but two of the Black members. The Black representatives were not even allowed to vote in their own defense. ^[Source 1]

About two weeks later, Philip Joiner, one of the expelled, led a march from Albany to Camilla. The sheriff's posse fired into the crowd, killed marchers, and hunted those who ran with dogs. ^[Source 1]

Turner asked if he was a man. Georgia answered with a vote, and then with guns.

1869 to 1870 Proven

The 15th Amendment

The vote was written into the Constitution. Now it had to be defended.

Congress passed the 15th Amendment on 26 February 1869. It was ratified on 3 February 1870. ^[Source 1]

"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." ^[Source 1]

Mark these words. Every era after this one is the story of how they were broken.

1870 Proven

Hiram Revels

The first of us in the United States Congress. The Senate argued over whether to let him in.

Hiram Revels was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, to parents who were both free. ^[Source 1]

In 1870, Mississippi's legislature chose him to fill one of the state's seats in the U.S. Senate, empty since Mississippi left the Union in 1861. ^[Source 1]

Some senators fought his seating. They said he could not have been a citizen for the nine years the Constitution required. On 25 February 1870, the Senate voted 48 to 8 to seat him, and he was sworn in. ^[Source 2]

He was the first African American to serve in Congress. In his first speech, he said our people "ask but the rights which are theirs by God's universal law." ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

Nearly a century after the Declaration of Independence, the first of us sat in the Senate, asking only for what was already ours.

1871 Proven

The Ku Klux Klan Act

For a moment, the nation used its power to protect us.

On 20 April 1871, at President Ulysses Grant's urging, Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act. ^[Source 1]

It set fines and prison terms for anyone who tried to take away a citizen's equal protection. It let the President use federal troops and suspend the writ of habeas corpus to protect civil rights. ^[Source 1]

After a wave of Klan attacks, Grant used it. On 17 October 1871, under the act "approved the 20th day of April, A. D. 1871," he suspended habeas corpus in nine counties of South Carolina: Spartanburg, York, Marion, Chester, Laurens, Newberry, Fairfield, Lancaster and Chesterfield. ^[Source 2]

It was the law, used for us.

1871 Proven

The Fisk Jubilee Singers

They set out with nothing but their voices, and the spirituals our ancestors made.

In 1871, Fisk University, in Nashville, was close to bankruptcy. ^[Source 1]

A group of its students, every one of them a former slave or the child of slaves, went on tour to raise money. In the account of their campaign, G. D. Pike wrote that the singers "had been advised by the Trustees of Fisk University to come North and earn money for the institution." ^{[Source 2] [Source 1]}

On the 6th of October 1871, they "started for the North." ^[Source 3]

On the road, they set aside the popular songs, and sang the spirituals and slave songs they knew. ^[Source 1]

The songs our ancestors sang to survive were now raising the money to educate their children.

1872 Proven

The Freedmen's Bureau Ends

The help was always meant to end. In 1872, it did.

In Georgia, it supported more than sixty schools in its first year. By 1868 its teachers had taught some 30,000 freed people to read. We wanted to learn that badly. ^[Source 1]

It never had enough money, and it met white resistance everywhere. By the summer of 1866, most of the coastal land promised in Sherman's order had gone back to its old owners. In Georgia its work ended as early as 1870, and in 1872 Congress let it die. ^[Source 1]

We were hungry to learn. The nation was not willing to keep paying to teach us.

1873 Proven

The Colfax Massacre

Easter Sunday. They killed our people after they surrendered.

After a disputed election for governor, Black men held the Grant Parish courthouse in Colfax, Louisiana, in support of Governor William Kellogg. ^[Source 1]

On Easter Sunday, 13 April 1873, hundreds of white men, more than 300 of them armed, attacked it. ^[Source 1]

About 150 Black people were killed, many "in cold blood after surrendering," some shot as they ran. Three white men died. ^[Source 1]

Who answered for it? Turn a few pages, and you will see.

1873 Proven

The Slaughterhouse Cases

A case about butchers, and the Court used it to shrink the amendment written for us.

The case began with New Orleans butchers who challenged a state law over the city's slaughterhouses. ^[Source 1]

On 14 April 1873, the day after Colfax, the Supreme Court ruled that the 14th Amendment protected only the "privileges and immunities" that came with United States citizenship, not those of state citizenship. ^[Source 1]

It protected only the rights named in the Constitution, and nothing more. ^[Source 1]

The ruling set the pattern of a narrow reading of the 14th Amendment, the amendment written for the freed people, for decades to come. ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

1874 Proven

The Freedman's Bank Fails

The nation chartered our bank. Then it let our savings go.

Congress stood behind the bank, but watched it only now and then. Henry Cooke sat on its board while using its money to help his own family's banking business. Congress changed its charter to let it lend on real estate. ^[Source 1]

In March 1874, Frederick Douglass was made its president. It was too late. On 29 June 1874 the trustees voted to close it. 61,144 depositors lost nearly $3 million, and got back only part of what they were owed. ^[Source 1]

That was the first lesson in American banking for the freed people. It would not be the last.

1875 Proven

The Civil Rights Act of 1875

The law promised us a seat at the inn and on the train.

Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts brought in the bill in 1870. He died in 1874, before it passed. ^[Source 1]

It became law on 1 March 1875. It promised every citizen "full and equal enjoyment" of inns, public transport, theaters and other places of amusement, whatever their race or color, and barred keeping Black men off juries. ^[Source 1]

To get it passed, its supporters had already dropped the part that would have forbidden segregated public schools. ^[Source 1]

Even in the law that promised us equality, they made sure our children would still sit apart.

1875 Proven

Blanche K. Bruce

Born enslaved. He rose to make laws for the nation.

Blanche K. Bruce was born into slavery in 1841, and grew up in Virginia and Missouri. He learned from the tutor hired for his enslaver's son. ^[Source 1]

When the Civil War began, he escaped to freedom in Kansas. After emancipation he went to Mississippi, where he worked in education and politics. ^[Source 1]

In 1874, Mississippi's legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate, and in 1875 he took his seat. ^[Source 1]

Born the property of another man. Seated among the men who make the nation's laws. Remember that, the next time someone says we did nothing with our freedom.

1876 Proven

The Homestead Count

Ten years on, the count was in.

Of the 27,800 final claims granted, only 4,000 to 5,500 went to African Americans. Congress repealed the act in 1876. ^[Source 1]

The land that could have built our wealth went to others. That is not opinion. It is the count.

1876 Proven

The Mississippi Plan

This is how they took the South back: with guns at a picnic, and a President who looked away.

In 1875, Mississippi's Democrats set out to take back the state "by any means necessary." It became known as the Mississippi Plan. ^[Source 1]

On 4 September 1875, Republican families gathered at Moss Hill in Clinton for a picnic and speeches. White Democrats opened fire on the crowd, killing three white men and at least five Black people, two of them children. ^[Source 1]

In the days after, armed white men came in from nearby towns. Between thirty and fifty Black people were killed. ^[Source 1]

Governor Adelbert Ames asked again and again for federal help. President Grant answered that the public was "tired out with these annual, autumnal outbreaks in the South," and stayed out. Clinton became the model for taking back the state. ^[Source 1]

In March 1876, Blanche K. Bruce of Mississippi, the only Black man in the United States Senate, rose to demand an inquiry. He told the Senate that "threats and violence were practiced directly upon the masses of voters." ^[Source 2]

Tired. Our people were being killed, and the nation was tired.

1876 Proven

The Court Frees the Colfax Killers

The Supreme Court let the killers go.

More than 100 of the mob were indicted, and only three were convicted. On 27 March 1876, in United States v. Cruikshank, the Supreme Court threw out even those. It ruled that the 14th Amendment protected against the acts of states, and that "this adds nothing to the rights of one citizen as against another." ^{[Source 1] [Source 2]}

So the mob was free to do what the state could not. And it did.

1876 Proven

The Hamburg Massacre

They were captured. Six were picked out and killed. No one paid for it.

Hamburg, South Carolina, had a Black militia, formed to protect its Black community. Its commander, Doc Adams, had been born enslaved and served in the Union army. ^[Source 1]

On 8 July 1876, after a quarrel with white travelers, more than two hundred white men surrounded the warehouse where the militia had barricaded itself. Their lawyer was Matthew C. Butler, a Confederate war hero. ^[Source 1]

One Black man was killed as he came out. Of the thirty or forty captured, six were picked out, marched away, and executed. ^[Source 1]

On 26 July, President Grant wrote to South Carolina's governor. He called "the scene at Hamburg" "cruel, blood-thirsty, wanton, unprovoked, and uncalled for," and "only a repetition of the course which has been pursued in other Southern States." ^{[Source 2] [Source 3]}

Nearly one hundred white men were arrested. Not one was ever prosecuted. The killings drove the campaign that put the former Confederate general Wade Hampton in the governor's office. ^[Source 1]

Arrested. That is as far as justice went.

1876 to 1877 Proven

The Deal of 1877

Here is where Reconstruction ended. Not in battle. In a hotel room, in a deal.

In the election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by about 250,000, but fell one electoral vote short. Twenty electoral votes from South Carolina, Louisiana and Florida were in dispute. ^[Source 1]

On 26 February 1877, at Wormley's Hotel in Washington, Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats made a secret deal. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes would be President, and he would pull federal troops out of the three states. ^[Source 1]

He kept his side of it. On 20 April 1877, he wrote to his Secretary of War about the soldiers at the statehouse in New Orleans: "You are therefore directed to see that the proper orders are issued for the removal of said troops." ^[Source 2]

The deal held no protection at all for the freed people of the South. ^[Source 1]

We were traded for a presidency.