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Freedmen's Bureau
The Freedmen's Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, was established in 1865 by Congress to help millions of former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War. -
Civil War Ends
The war began when the Confederates bombarded Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861. The war ended in Spring, 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865. -
Lincoln Assassinated
A Marylander by birth, Booth was an open Confederate sympathizer during the war. A supporter of slavery, Booth believed that Lincoln was determined to overthrow the Constitution and to destroy his beloved South. -
13h Amendment Ratified
Passed by Congress on January 31, 1865, and ratified on December 6, 1865, the 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States. The 13th amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States, passed the Senate on April 8, 1864, and the House on January 31, 1865. -
Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act (1866) was passed by Congress on 9th April 1866 over the veto of President Andrew Johnson. The act declared that all persons born in the United States were now citizens, without regard to race, color, or previous condition. -
Memphis Race Riots
Memphis Race Riot, (May 1866), in the U.S. post-Civil War period, attack by members of the white majority on black residents of Memphis, Tennessee, illustrating Southern intransigence in the face of defeat and indicating unwillingness to share civil or social rights -
New Orleans Race Riots
New Orleans Race Riot, (July 1866), after the American Civil War, incident of white violence directed against black urban dwellers in Louisiana; the event was influential in focusing public opinion in the North on the necessity of taking firmer measures to govern the South . -
1st Reconstruction Act
Reconstruction Acts, U.S. legislation enacted in 1867–68 that outlined the conditions under which the Southern states would be readmitted to the Union following the American Civil War (1861–65). The bills were largely written by the Radical Republicans in the U.S. Congress. -
2nd Reconstruction Act
The First Reconstruction Act left the Southern States in confusion to whose role it was to reinforce the legislation. The Second Act answered this problem. It established and clarified that the military commanders held responsibility to register voters and hold elections in their territories. -
3rd Reconstruction Act
On July 19, 1867, the third of the Reconstruction Acts gave supreme power to the five Union generals overseeing Reconstruction in the five districts of the South. Each district included several former states of the Confederacy, with the exception of Tennessee, which was never under military rule. -
4th Reconstruction Act
Under the terms of the Reconstruction Acts, new state constitutions were written in the South. By Aug., 1868, six states (Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida) had been readmitted to the Union, having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment as required by the first Reconstruction Act. -
Grant Elected President
The 1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1868. In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. -
14th Amendment Ratified
On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. The amendment grants citizenship to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" which included former slaves who had just been freed after the Civil War. -
15th Amendment Ratified
Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
1st Black Senator Elected
Passed by Congress February 26, 1869, and ratified February 3, 1870, the 15th amendment granted African American men the right to vote. -
1st Black Governor Elected
Pinckney Benton Stewart Pinchback (born Pinckney Benton Stewart, May 10, 1837 – December 21, 1921) was an American publisher and politician, a Union Army officer, and the first African American to become governor of a U.S. state. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
Civil Rights Act of 1875, U.S. legislation, and the last of the major Reconstruction statutes, which guaranteed African Americans equal treatment in public transportation and public accommodations and service on juries. The U.S. Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional in the Civil Rights Cases (1883). -
Compromise of 1876
The Compromise of 1877 was an informal agreement between southern Democrats and allies of the Republican Rutherford Hayes to settle the result of the 1876 presidential election and marked the end of the Reconstruction era. ... The Democrats agreed not to block Hayes’ victory on the -
Reconstruction Ends
In 1877, Hayes withdrew the last federal troops from the south, and the bayonet-backed Republican governments collapsed, thereby ending Reconstruction. Over the next three decades, the civil rights that blacks had been promised during Reconstruction crumbled under white rule in the south.