Born on this day in Massachusetts, Charles Sumner was outspoken against slavery, for full recognition of Haiti, against the U.S.-Mexico War, for true reconstruction with land distribution, against school segregation, and much more.
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The Union Army occupied the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina, freeing approximately 10,000 people who had been enslaved, starting what became known as the Port Royal Experiment.
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Tunis Campbell, who assisted in the Port Royal Experiment to assist freed people during Reconstruction, was an abolitionist, state senator, and justice of the peace.
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Charlotte Brown was forcibly removed from a horse-drawn streetcar in San Francisco.
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Sgt. Walker was convicted of mutiny and killed, one of nineteen Union soldiers executed by the Union army for mutiny during the Civil War, fourteen of whom were Black.
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The New Orleans Tribune was launched and published daily in French and English by Louis Charles Roudanez.
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People who had escaped from slavery and were following the Union Army, were blocked from crossing the Ebenezer Creek, leading to their death.
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Demands by Black ministers after the Ebenezer Creek Massacre led to the short-lived land distribution during Reconstruction known as Special Field Order No. 15.
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The Union Army moved into Charleston, South Carolina, the city where the Civil War had begun four years earlier.
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The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was established within the War Department to undertake the relief effort and social reconstruction after the Civil War.
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The U.S. Civil War ended when the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House in south-central Virginia.
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African Americans tested their right to vote and when denied, cast their own “freedom ballots,” on election day in Norfolk, Virginia.
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The Colored Monitor Union Club organized and released their address for equal rights in Norkfolk, Virginia, soon after the Civil War ended.
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The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution officially ended the institution of slavery.
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Secretary of State William H. Seward declared the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to have been adopted.
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Congressman Thaddeus Stevens offered an amendment to the Freedmen's Bureau Bill to authorize the distribution of public land.
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Benjamin Berry Manson and Sarah Ann Benton White, formerly enslaved in Tennessee, receive an official marriage certificate from the Freedmen’s Bureau.
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William Beverly Nash and several others asked the federal government to intervene to ensure equal medical treatment for all.
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White civilians and police killed 46 African Americans and injured many more while burning houses, schools, and churches in Memphis, Tennessee.
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The New Orleans Massacre occurred when white residents attacked Black marchers near the reconvened Louisiana Constitutional Convention.
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Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson’s veto and passed the first of four statutes known as the Reconstruction Acts, which outlined the process of readmission to the Union.
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Staged ride-ins during Reconstruction in South Carolina were among the first (recorded) organized protests of segregation on a streetcar.
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African Americans in Richmond, Virginia organized protests against segregated streetcars.
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Delegates gathered in Montgomery, Alabama, to draft a new state constitution during Reconstruction.
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