Despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the defeat of the Confederacy, and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution permanently abolishing slavery, the United States in 1865 was still deeply divided over what to do with its newly freed black population. The Federal government had created a “Freedman’s Bureau” even before the war’s end to help provide former slaves with food, medical care, housing, and education. In angry response, local white authorities had passed a series of “Black Codes” restricting the right of former slaves to own property, controlling where they were allowed to live, and forcing them to work as either agricultural laborers or domestic servants—often in unfair “sharecropping” arrangements hardly distinguishable from slavery itself.

Further complicating matters was the division even within the victorious North about how the South should be governed and eventually reassimilated into the Union. Reflecting a widespread unease about former slaves gaining political power, Democratic President Andrew Johnson broke with his Republican predecessor Abraham Lincoln by supporting all-white rule over local southern governments. He was opposed by the so-called “Radical” Republicans who insisted on full voting rights for black men. Moderate Republicans preferred more limited civil rights for the former slaves, but eventually they joined with the Radicals to override Johnson’s veto and pass the 1866 Civil Rights Act.

This piece of landmark legislation abolished most of the Black Codes and gave former slaves the rights and privileges of citizenship. This status was further guaranteed by the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution—ratification of which by formerly rebel states was made a condition of their readmission to the Union. With the passage of these “Reconstruction Amendments,” former slaves throughout the South enjoyed a brief period in which they could own land anywhere, seek employment of their choosing, and use the same public accommodations as whites. Most importantly, they were allowed to vote and run for public office, which they did successfully across the South.

White southerners, however, refused to submit to what they called “Negro Rule.” Groups like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized southern Republican governments, black voters, and black political leaders through acts of violence that included murder and torture. In 1871, Congress authorized Republican President Ulysses S. Grant to use Federal troops to put down the growing insurgency of southern white militias.

In the meantime, exaggerated reports of corruption among southern black Republican politicians eroded Northern enthusiasm for Reconstruction policies. When the financial crash of 1873 distracted the North’s attention and further sapped its resolve, southern whites renewed violence and intimidation against black voters to regain political power. Two years later, anti-Reconstruction Democrats took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. By 1877, Federal troops would be withdrawn from the South and white-controlled governments across the South began repealing the polices of Reconstruction.

The era of Jim Crow segregation had begun.

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