America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War

A Visual Timeline of Reconstruction: 1863-1877

Click an image to jump to that section of the exhbit.

1863
January 1		Emancipation Proclamation issued. Frees slaves in states in rebellion and authorizes the enlistment of black troops.
1864
November 8		Lincoln reelected president

1865
March 3		The Freedmen's Bureau established. Provides assistance to emancipated African Americans. Abolished in 1872.
April 8		Lee surrenders. Robert E. Lee surrenders to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomatox Court House. Joseph E. Johnston's surrender in North Carolina on April 18 effectively ends the Civil War.
April 15		President Abraham Lincoln assassinated. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president.
December 6		13th Amendment ratified. Abolishes slavery in the United States.
		Black Codes enacted. Southern states enact laws restricting rights of African Americans.
1866
April 9		Civil Rights Act of 1866 Confers citizenship on African Americans and guarantees equal rights.
May 1-3		Memphis Race Riot White civilians and police kill 46 African Americans and destroy 90 houses, schools, and four churches in Memphis, Tennessee.
July 30		New Orleans Race Riot Police kill more than 40 black and white Republicans and wound more than 150.
		Ku Klux Klan A secret organization to intimidate African Americans and restore white rule is founded in Pulaski, Tennessee.
1867
		Reconstruction Acts Congress divides the former Confederacy into five military districts and requirs elections in which African American men can vote.
1868
March-May		President Johnson's Impeachment Trial By one vote, the U.S. Senate fails to remove the president from office.
July 21		Fourteenth Amendment ratified. Guarantees due process and equal protection under the law to African Americans.
November 3		Ulysses S. Grant elected President. The former Union general becomes the 18th president.
1869
		First Redeemer Government Tennessee is the first state to replace a bi-racial Republican state government with an all-white Democratic government, followed by Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia in 1870.
1870
February 23		First black senator elected. Hiram Revels of Mississippi elected to U. S. Senate as the first black senator.
March 30		Fifteenth Amendment ratified. Extends the vote to all male citizens regardless of racer or previous condition of servitude.
1871
		Forty-second Congress. Five black members in the House of Representatives: Benjamin S. Turner of Alabama; Josiah T. Walls of Florida; and Robert Brown Elliot, Joseph H. Rainey and Robert Carlos DeLarge of South Carolina.
1872
		Freedmen's Bureau abolished.
		First African American governor. P. B. S. Pinchback, acting governor of Louisiana from December 9, 1872 to January 13, 1873. Pinchback, a black politician, was the first black to serve as a state governor, although due to white resistance, his tenure is extremely short.
1874
		Democrats control the Forty-third Congress For the first time since before the Civil War, Democrats control both houses of Congress. Robert Smalls, black hero of the Civil War, elected to Congress as representative of South Carolina. Blanche K. Bruce elected to U. S. Senate.
1875
March 1		Civil Rights Act of 1875 enacted by Congress. Guarantees equal rights to African Americans in public accomodations and jury service. Ruled unconstitutional in 1883.
1876
		Disputed Presidential election Republicans challenged the validity of the voting in Souh Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana.
		Wade Hampton inaugurated as governor of South Carolina. The election of Hampton, a leader in the Confederacy, confirms fears that the South is not committed to Reconstruction.
1877
		Rutherford B. Hayes inaugurated President. Electoral Commissoin awards disputed electoral votes tot he republican candidate.
		Reconstruction ends. President Rutherford Hayes withdraws federal troops from the South protecting the Civil Rights of African Americans.