-
1877 BCE
Reconstruction
in 1865 and 1866, new southern state legislatures passed restrictive “black codes” to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and other African Americans. In less than a decade, however, reactionary forces–including the Ku Klux Klan–would reverse the changes wrought by Radical Reconstruction in a violent backlash that restored white supremacy in the South. -
1870 BCE
Sharecropping
conflict arose between many white landowners attempting to reestablish a labor force and freed blacks seeking economic independence and autonomy. During Reconstruction, however, the conflict over labor resulted in the sharecropping system, in which black families would rent small plots of land in return for a portion of their crop, to be given to the landowner at the end of each year. -
1866 BCE
Radical Reconstruction
Wide public support gradually developed for those members of Congress who believed that blacks should be given full citizenship. Both Lincoln and Johnson had foreseen that the Congress would have the right to deny Southern legislators seats in the U.S. Senate. This came to pass when, under the leadership of Thaddeus Stevens, those congressmen (called "Radical Republicans") who sought to punish the South refused to seat its elected senators and representatives. -
Election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham was elected the 16th president of the United States. He was the first republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates. -
Secession of Southern States
The outbreak of the American Civil War caused secession. The first seven seceding states of the Lower South set up a provisional government at Montgomery, Alabama. Twenty-one northern and border states retained the style and title of the United States, while the eleven slave states adopted the nomenclature of the Confederate States of America. -
Civil War
The civil war was a war fought to end slavery. In the spring of 1861, decades of simmering tensions between the northern and southern United States over issues including states’ rights versus federal authority, westward expansion and slavery exploded into the American Civil War. Seven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. -
Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln carefully framed the conflict as concerning the preservation of the Union rather than the abolition of slavery. soon after the Union victory at Antietam, he issued a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that as of January 1, 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states “shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” -
Freedmen’s Bureau
Established by Congress to help former black slaves and poor whites in the South in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. Freedmen’s Bureau provided food, housing and medical aid, established schools and offered legal assistance. It also attempted to settle former slaves on Confederate lands confiscated or abandoned during the war. However, the bureau was prevented from fully carrying out its programs due to a shortage of funds and personnel. -
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. -
13th amendment
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially abolished slavery in America, and was ratified on December 6, 1865, after the conclusion of the American Civil War. The amendment states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” -
14th amendment
The 14th Amendment, guaranteeing to African Americans citizenship and all its privileges, is officially adopted into the U.S. Constitution.which had been passed by Congress in 1866, ratified in July 1868. The amendment resolved pre-Civil War questions of African American citizenship by stating that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside.” -
1st African American elected to Congress during Reconstruction
One of the most important aspects of Reconstruction was the active participation of African Americans (including thousands of former slaves) in the political, economic and social life of the South. During Reconstruction, some 2,000 African Americans held public office, from the local level all the way up to the U.S. Senate, though they never achieved representation in government proportionate to their numbers. -
15th amendment
The 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote, was formally adopted into the U.S. Constitution on March 30, 1870. Passed by Congress the year before, the amendment reads: “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.” -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The House passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 by a vote of 162 to 99. Republican leaders were forced, however, to chip away at the legislation’s protections in order to make it palatable enough to pass in the face of growing public pressure to abandon racial legislation and embrace segregation.The weakened legislation—which only passed after all references to equal and integrated education were stripped completely—failed to have any lasting effect.
