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The first African Americans to serve in the Congress were Republicans elected during the Reconstruction Era. After the 13th and 14th Amendments granted freedom and citizenship to enslaved people , freedmen gained political representation in the Southern United States for the first time.
Furious white Southerners told the rumor that Reconstruction was secretly promoting Black Americans having full control over whites. Many congressional elections in the South were contested. Even states with majority-African-American populations often elected only one or two African American representatives to Congress.
The "Original 33" were the first 33 African-American members of the Georgia General Assembly. They were elected to office in 1868, during the Reconstruction era. They were among the first African-American state legislators in the United States. Twenty-four of the members were ministers.
Nevertheless, many African Americans served in its legislature and Mississippi was the only state that elected African American candidates to the U.S. Senate during the Reconstruction era; a total of 37 African Americans served in the Senate and 117 served in the House. [59] [60]
The nadir of American race relations was the period in African-American history and the history of the United States from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the early 20th century, when racism in the country, and particularly anti-black racism, was more open and pronounced than it had ever been during any other period in the nation's history.
His book emphasized the role of African Americans during Reconstruction, noted their collaboration with Whites, their lack of majority in most legislatures, and also the achievements of Reconstruction: establishing universal public education, improving prisons, establishing orphanages and other charitable institutions, and trying to improve ...
After the Union victory over the Confederacy, a brief period of Southern Black progress, called Reconstruction, followed. During Reconstruction, the states that had seceded were readmitted into the Union. [102] From 1865 to 1877, under the protection of Union troops, some strides were made toward equal rights for African Americans.
Freedmen voting in New Orleans, 1867. Reconstruction lasted from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 to the Compromise of 1877. [1] [2]The major issues faced by President Abraham Lincoln were the status of the ex-slaves (called "Freedmen"), the loyalty and civil rights of ex-rebels, the status of the 11 ex-Confederate states, the powers of the federal government needed to ...