In December 1865, the first postwar Congress convened in Washington, D.C. With Black Southerners still facing rampant violence and discrimination, the Republican majority blocked the former Confederate states from rejoining the Union.Determined to protect Black rights and curb the power of ex-Confederates, Radical Republican leaders Thaddeus Stevens and Char ... Show More
Jun 2023
Reconstruction Era | Impeachment | 3
In the spring of 1867, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto, the Republican-controlled Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, putting the U.S. Army in control of the South and giving Black Southerners expanded political rights. For the first time they organized and attended pol ... Show More
42m 2s
Jun 2023
Reconstruction Era | The Bloody Chasm | 4
In 1870, the ratification of the 15th Amendment enshrined Black men’s right to vote in the Constitution. Senator Hiram Revels became the first Black man to serve in Congress. Across the South, Black men were elected to office in unprecedented numbers.But soon, the Ku Klux Klan mo ... Show More
41m 29s
Jun 2023
Reconstruction Era | The Panic | 5
On Easter Sunday, 1873, an armed white mob battled a Black militia over control of a courthouse in a rural Louisiana parish. In the end, as many as 150 Black citizens were massacred. It was one the deadliest incidents of racial violence during the Reconstruction era.As anti-Black ... Show More
41m 45s