Guided trail
Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution
For a brief, radical decade after the Civil War, Black Americans voted, held office, and built institutions — until a violent campaign of "Redemption" tore it all down. Follow the rise and fall.
- 1EventThe Emancipation Proclamation
January 1, 1863: the war becomes a war for freedom, and Black men are called to fight.
- 2EventJuneteenth: freedom reaches Texas
June 19, 1865: the news of freedom finally reaches the last enslaved people in Texas.
- 3EventThe 13th Amendment
Slavery is abolished in the Constitution — with a fateful exception for those "duly convicted."
- 4EventThe Freedmen's Bureau
The federal government tries to build a bridge from slavery to freedom.
- 5EventThe 14th Amendment
Citizenship and equal protection are written into the Constitution — overturning Dred Scott.
- 6EventThe 15th Amendment
The vote can no longer be denied on account of race; Black men go to the polls and to office.
- 7PersonHiram Rhodes Revels
A formerly free Black minister takes a U.S. Senate seat once held by Jefferson Davis.
- 8EventThe Colfax Massacre
1873: white paramilitaries answer Black political power with mass murder.
- 9EventThe Compromise of 1877 ends Reconstruction
The bargain that ends Reconstruction and abandons the South to "Redemption."
- 10EventPlessy v. Ferguson
1896: the Supreme Court blesses segregation, and the door to Jim Crow swings open.