Reconstruction Archives

June 10, 2018: Ancestral Land Returned to Ponca Tribe

Along the “Trail of Tears” in Neligh, Nebraska, a farmer signed a deed to return ancestral land to the Ponca Tribe.

No Common Ground: Confederate Monuments and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice

Book — Non-fiction. By Karen L. Cox. 2021. 224 pages.
Tells the story of the efforts to raise, preserve, protest, and remove Confederate monuments across the United States.

Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital

Book — Non-fiction. By Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove. 2019. 624 pages.
Tells the tumultuous, four-century story of race and democracy in our nation’s capital.

Sept. 10, 1895: South Carolina Constitutional Convention Convened

The South Carolina Constitutional Convention convened to disenfranchise Black voters.

Sept. 19, 1868: Camilla Massacre

As African Americans marched peacefully in response to their expulsion from elected office, more than a dozen were massacred near Albany, Georgia.

April 16, 1862: Compensated Emancipation Act

The federal government compensated the “owners” of enslaved people for their “loss of property.” The people whose labor, skills, knowledge, and families were stolen for generations were not compensated nor given any assistance for the transition to freedom.

Feb. 3, 1868: First Freedmen’s Bureau Teacher Appointed in Lafayette Parish

Walter H. Williams was the first Black teacher appointed to a Freedmen’s Bureau School in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana during Reconstruction.

Sept. 6, 1870: Black Women Vote in Wyoming

Following a suffrage bill that recognized women’s right to vote and hold public office in Wyoming, Black women there became the first to vote in a U.S. territory in 1870.

The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution

Book — Non-fiction. By Eric Foner. 2020. 304 pages.
Traces the arc of the three foundational Reconstruction amendments from their origins in antebellum activism to their virtual nullification by narrow Supreme Court decisions and Jim Crow state laws.

Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, publisher of the New Orleans Tribune.

Oct. 4, 1864: New Orleans Tribune Launched

The New Orleans Tribune was launched and published daily in French and English by Louis Charles Roudanez.

Oct. 19, 1870: First African Americans Elected to the House of Representatives

For the first time, African Americans were elected to the House of Representatives in 1870.

Oct. 25, 1868: St. Bernard Parish Massacre

The St. Bernard Parish massacre of African Americans was carried out by white men to terrorize the recently emancipated voters in Louisiana.

Oct. 30, 1870: Protest of Racist Policies on Streetcars in Louisville

Reconstruction era protest of racist discrimination on streetcars in Louisville, Kentucky.

Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre

The elected and interracial Reconstruction era local government was deposed in a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Nov. 23, 1887: Thibodaux Massacre

Between 30-60 striking Black Louisiana sugarcane workers were massacred.

A Peoples History of the United States Book | Zinn Education Project

A People’s History of the United States: 1492 – Present

Book — Non-fiction. By Howard Zinn. 2005, with a new introduction by Anthony Arnove in 2015. 784 pages.
Howard Zinn's groundbreaking work on U.S. history. This book details lives and facts rarely included in textbooks—an indispensable teacher and student resource.

Oct. 15, 1883: Civil Rights Act of 1875 Declared Unconstitutional

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public spaces, was unconstitutional and not authorized by the 13th or 14th Amendments of the Constitution.

The Most Absolute Abolition: Runaways, Vigilance Committees, and the Rise of Revolutionary Abolitionism, 1835–1861

Book — Non-fiction. By Jesse Olsavsky. 2022. 294 pages.
Tells the story of how vigilance committees organized the Underground Railroad and revolutionized the abolitionist movement.

Statue of Octavius Catto with people gathered around it

Oct. 10, 1871: Octavius Catto Killed on Election Day in Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Black educator, baseball player, and civil rights activist Octavius V. Catto was murdered by a white supremacist on election day.

Newspaper article on the Vicksburg Massacre.

Dec. 7, 1874: Vicksburg Massacre

White people attacked and killed many Black citizens who had organized for a Black sheriff to remain in office during the Vicksburg Massacre.

Dec. 12, 1870: Joseph H. Rainey First African American in U.S. House of Reps

Joseph H. Rainey, from South Carolina, was the first African American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hiram Rhodes Revels (photo) | Zinn Education Project

Jan. 20, 1870: Hiram Rhodes Revels Elected to U.S. Senate During Reconstruction

Hiram Rhodes Revels was the first African American to be elected to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Teacher Mini-Grants to Commemorate the 15th Amendment in 2020

Apply for a mini-grant to teach the 15th Amendment in 2020, the 150th anniversary of the Constitutional right to vote regardless of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Reconstructing the South: What Really Happened

Teaching Activity. By Mimi Eisen and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca. 47 pages.
A follow-up lesson to “Reconstructing the South,” using primary source documents to reveal key outcomes of the Reconstruction era.

Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank

Book — Non-fiction. By Justene Hill Edwards. 2024. 336 pages.
Following the Civil War, tens of thousands of the formerly enslaved deposited millions of dollars into the Freedman’s Bank, but their trust was betrayed when the Freedman’s Bank collapsed within the decade.

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