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Rebuilding the South
The Union victory in the Civil War in 1865 may have given some 4 million slaves their freedom, but the process of rebuilding the South during the Reconstruction period (1865-1877) introduced a new set of significant challenges. Under the administration of President Andrew Johnson 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. -
Freedmen's Bureau
Congress establishes the Freedmen's Bureau to protect the rights of newly emancipated blacks (March). -
Thirteenth Amendement.
all slaves were freed in 1865 with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendement. -
Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment
Other legislation followed, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth Amendment; both repealed the Dred Scott decision and made blacks full U.S. citizens. The Fifteenth Amendment granted black men the right to vote and gave Congress the power to enact laws protecting that right. -
White supremacist organizations
After 1867, an increasing number of southern whites turned to violence in response to the revolutionary changes of Radical Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist organizations targeted local Republican leaders, white and black, and other African Americans who challenged white authority. -
Hiram Revels
In 1870, the first black senator was elected; Hiram Revels was a minister and politician who had been a chaplain in the Union Army and, following the war, had been assigned by the Methodist Episcopal Church to a pastorship in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1865. -
Jim Crow Laws
The Jim Crow laws, which were state and local segregation laws enacted from 1876-1965, were passed to separate blacks and whites in as many aspects of life as possible. -
blacks moved west to claim land via the Homestead Act
As Jim Crow laws were put on the books and widespread discrimination was sanctioned by law, many blacks moved west to claim land via the Homestead Act. Most chose to migrate to Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, and California, with migration to Oklahoma picking up in the 1890s after Indian lands were opened for settlement. All-black communities formed around the promise of land ownership and escape from racial persecution. -
Water Fountain
Along with schools, bathrooms, parks, and transportation, even water fountains were segregated -
Brown v. Board of Education
In the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., the Supreme Court rules unanimously that segregation in public schools in unconstitutional. -
Little Rock Nine
President Dwight D. Eisenhower sends federal troops to ensure integration of the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. The Little Rock Nine were the first black students to attend the school.
