--- title: Black Politicians Elected in the South After the Civil War description: A short video on how Black politicians in the South after the Civil War provide context for voting rights battles today. canonical: https://time.com/6145193/black-politicians-reconstruction/ author: Olivia B. Waxman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2022-02-07T21:16:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:18:50.011Z article:section: History og:title: Why the Black Politicians of Reconstruction Are Often Overlooked og:description: Highlighting Black political leadership provides a fuller picture of the diverse range of change-makers in the United States og:url: https://time.com/6145193/black-politicians-reconstruction/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4dc1b6f247c2c9a4/698a221822fb858239e2d16c/black-politicians-reconstruction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1990 og:image:height: 1119 og:image:alt: First African-American Senators and Representatives to Serve in Congress og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the Black Politicians of Reconstruction Are Often Overlooked twitter:description: Highlighting Black political leadership provides a fuller picture of the diverse range of change-makers in the United States twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4dc1b6f247c2c9a4/698a221822fb858239e2d16c/black-politicians-reconstruction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Legacy of the Reconstruction Era’s Black Political Leaders > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=5de78c3a-2205-4419-9eb1-7603ed2e4a7f&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=5de78c3a-2205-4419-9eb1-7603ed2e4a7f&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The History You Didn't Learn: The Black Politicians of Reconstruction [Watch (HLS stream): The History You Didn't Learn: The Black Politicians of Reconstruction](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/VCq3ug9K.m3u8) (8:39)  _Published 2022-02-05. When we learn about the Reconstruction Era in school, it’s often taught as a dark period, a time of upheaval and unrest right after the Cvil War. But for a brief period of time, thousands of black representatives were elected to office._ by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/) and [Video by Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) Feb 7, 2022 9:16 PM UTC When we learn about the Reconstruction Era in school, it’s often taught as a dark period, a time of upheaval and unrest right after the Cvil War. But for a brief period of time, thousands of black representatives were elected to office. by [Olivia B. Waxman](https://time.com/author/olivia-b-waxman/) and [Video by Arpita Aneja](https://time.com/author/arpita-aneja/) Feb 7, 2022 9:16 PM UTC At least 19 states passed 34 laws restricting access to voting in 2021, [according to](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-december-2021) the Brennan Center for Justice. In [Georgia](https://time.com/5951273/georgia-voting-restrictions-history/), Gov. Brian Kemp signed a law [limiting the number of drop boxes](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/15/us/politics/voting-rights-democrats.html) for ballots; in [Texas](https://time.com/6079803/texas-democrats-walkout-dc/), Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning [24-hour and drive-thru voting](https://www.harrisvotes.com/FAQ/SB1FAQ). The laws came after [record turnout ](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/04/record-high-turnout-in-2020-general-election.html)in the [2020 election](https://time.com/5907062/record-turnout-history/), including among [African-American voters](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/08/black-voters-helped-biden-get-elected-his-presidency-will-be-defined-by-how-he-acts-racial-equity/)—and the Brennan Center’s research shows that the voter restrictions nationwide are [more likely to impact African-American voters and minority voters.](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/impact-voter-suppression-communities-color) Historians say that this wave of laws making it harder to vote echo the backlash to the electoral gains made by African Americans during Reconstruction (1865-1877), the era of political revolution in the aftermath of the Civil War. The above video looks back at [Black politicians](https://time.com/3714088/hiram-revels/) who served at all levels of government about a century before the 1960s civil rights movement. “I think one of the reasons that it’s so timely to learn about Black political leaders during Reconstruction is because we have an unprecedented wave of new laws that are meant to suppress voters—specifically African-American voters—in some cases in order to ensure that African-American voices are not adequately heard in the political process,” says William Sturkey, associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina.  Vintage illustration features portraits of African-American heroes, including Blanche Kelso Bruce, Frederick Douglass, and Hiram Rhodes Revels, surrounded by scenes of African-American life in the mid 1800s and portraits of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, and Ulysses S. Grant. Getty Images “Reconstruction was the first time that this country tried to be an interracial democracy—or a democracy, in other words,” says Eric Foner, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and expert on Reconstruction. “It was the first time that African-American men… became part of the body politic, voted, held office. And key issues that are on our agenda today were fought out for the first time in Reconstruction.” In 1867, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts, requiring new state governments to be set up based on universal suffrage in states that were part of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. New elections took place in 1867 and 1868\. States like Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina were, at the time, close to a majority Black and elected Black men to statehouses and local positions for the first time. “When African Americans were prevented from voting, federal troops or federal investigators would often be called in in order to protect \[their\] rights in order to cast the ballot,” says Sturkey. **Read more:** [_Schools Are Failing to Teach Reconstruction, Report Says_](https://time.com/6128421/teaching-reconstruction-study/) Foner, the author of _Freedom’s Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction,_ estimates that about 2,000 Black Americans held public office at the local, state, and federal levels during Reconstruction. Among the notable Black officeholders in this era: Republican [Hiram Revels](https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/First-African-American-Senator.htm) of Mississippi, the first Black U.S. Senator, appointed by the Senate to fill a vacancy; [Blanche K. Bruce](https://time.com/5926774/raphael-warnock-georgia-history/), another Mississippi Republican who was the first Black U.S. Senator to serve a full term; [Robert Smalls](https://history.house.gov/People/Detail/21764), who escaped enslavement and went on to serve five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives; and [Jonathan Jasper Wright](https://www.preservationsociety.org/locations/justice-jonathan-jasper-wright-law-office/) of South Carolina, the first state Supreme Court justice in the U.S. On Jan. 6, 1874, Robert B. Elliott, a Black Republican congressman from South Carolina, gave one of the most powerful [speeches of the era](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Congressional%5FRecord/P85iAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=What+you+give+to+one+class+you+must+give+to+all%3B+what+you+deny+to+one+class+you+shall+deny+to+all,&pg=PA408&printsec=frontcover) in defense of what would become the [Civil Rights Act of 1875](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reconstruction-civil-rights-during-reconstruction/#:~:text=Eric%20Foner%3A%20The%20Civil%20Rights,opera%20houses%2C%20things%20like%20that.). “What you give to one class you must give to all; what you deny to one class, you shall deny to all,” he said.  A circa 1874 lithograph of South Carolina Congressmen Robert B. Elliott delivering a speech on civil rights to the House of Representatives. MPI—Getty Images Historians say one of Black officeholders’ biggest contribution was their role in establishing state-sponsored public schools. Black lawmakers made up a majority of delegates at the 1868 South Carolina constitutional convention, which greenlit [tax-funded public schools](https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/video/part-four-interracial-democracy). Similarly, half of the delegates were Black at the Louisiana constitutional convention, which wrote [integrated public schools](https://www.crt.state.la.us/louisiana-state-museum/online-exhibits/the-cabildo/reconstruction-a-state-divided/index#:~:text=It%20extended%20voting%20and%20other,a%20formal%20bill%20of%20rights.) into the new state Constitution. (Though most of the schools remained segregated.) “The southern states were required to write new constitutions by the Reconstruction Acts of 1867… that allow Black and white men to vote and hold office. These new constitutions \[also\] included provisions for public education systems in the South,” says Foner. “Black officeholders played a key role in the creation of public education in the South.” But Black officeholder numbers started to decline after 1877\. As part of a deal to settle [the contested 1876 presidential election](https://time.com/5903361/contested-election-history/), Ohio Gov. Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency in exchange for the removal of federal troops in the South that had helped protect Black voters. In subsequent elections, [Ku Klux Klan](https://time.com/4990253/kkk-white-nationalists-history/) and vigilante violence at poll stations drove Black Americans away from the ballot boxes. Some Reconstruction state governments were overthrown, and the new state governments passed restrictive voting laws in what became known as the [Jim Crow era](https://time.com/5775300/segregation-separation/). While the 15th Amendment of the Constitution said states couldn’t restrict voting based on race, state legislators [passed laws](https://time.com/5876456/black-women-right-to-vote/) that mandated expensive poll taxes (fees to vote) and literacy tests (questions with no right answers)—and subjected African Americans to them more than white Americans. It wasn’t until nearly a century later when the [1965 Voting Rights Act](https://time.com/3985603/voting-rights-act-1965-history/) made literacy tests and poll taxes illegal. **Read more:** [_How Reconstruction Still Shapes American Racism_](https://time.com/5562869/reconstruction-history/) One reason the Black political leaders of Reconstruction aren’t often taught in U.S. K-12 schools is because the backlash to the Black officeholders during Reconstruction contradicts the narrative that America has improved with each generation, Sturkey says. “It’s a little bit tricky to teach Reconstruction because African Americans during Reconstruction could vote in much of the South, and then things actually got a lot worse. It doesn’t really fit into this narrative of constant progress throughout America since the Civil War,” says Sturkey. “I think that a lot of people don’t realize that Black people actually could vote for a period of time and had lost it again and then had to fight for it again during the Civil Rights movement.” Foner says Black political leadership provides a fuller picture of the diverse range of change-makers in the United States. The stories of Black officeholders during Reconstruction, he says, are important “for students of all backgrounds to understand that African Americans have always played a crucial role in American history.” ## Transcript [00:02] People don't realize that African Americans have always been [00:05] a part of this nation's democracy. [00:06] Black people always strongly desired the right to vote and always [00:11] fought for being included in the political process. [00:13] And then also, I think a lot of people might take for granted [00:17] that African Americans always get to have that [00:20] Right. Because we had it before, but we lost it and so it could [00:25] be lost again, [00:25] if people don't fight to protect it. [00:43] When we learn about the Reconstruction Era in school, [00:46] it's often taught as a dark period in American history, a time [00:49] of upheaval and unrest right after the Civil War. [00:51] But what often gets overlooked is that for a brief period [00:55] of time, thousands of black representatives were elected [00:57] to office all over the South. [01:01] My estimate is that there were about 2,000 African American [01:05] men who held public office during Reconstruction. Offices [01:11] ranging from the Senate, [01:13] there were two black Senators, 14 members of the House of Representatives, [01:18] six or seven hundred members of state legislatures, [01:21] and then dozens of other offices, state level, [01:25] local level etc. [01:27] So what was going on was that a lot of the former Confederates, [01:31] the most outspoken leaders of white supremacy, [01:33] were not allowed to serve in Congress. [01:36] And so, you know, with those people absent, there were people [01:39] that did believed that African-Americans should be folded [01:42] into the fabric of American civil and political life, [01:46] and that did advocate for black people to be able to vote. [01:49] And then, of course, when African-Americans [01:53] were prevented from voting federal troops Federal investigators [01:57] were often being called in, in order to protect those African-Americans [02:00] rights in order to cast a ballot. [02:06] At the time, many states in the South where either majority Black [02:09] or close to it. [02:10] And because of that, they were able to elect Black legislators, [02:13] especially at the state level. [02:15] The most significant accomplishment of Black legislators in many southern [02:19] states during Reconstruction was the establishment [02:22] of public school system, [02:24] not only for African Americans, but for white students as well. [02:27] And even though these were segregated, they were often the first [02:30] time that many African-Americans fresh out of slavery [02:34] had an opportunity to learn to read and write. [02:37] The highest level of office reached by these black legislators was the U.S. Senate. [02:41] And the first was Hiram Revels [02:43] a US senator from the state of Mississippi [02:45] So Hiram Revels was a pretty unique individual in that he was educated, [02:52] and he later became a civil rights Champion, before the civil war, during the civil war. [02:58] And then afterward he was sent to Mississippi [03:03] where he was appointed by the state [03:06] legislature to be a United States Senator. [03:10] In response to Black political power during Reconstruction, [03:13] the South was just right with violence and every single Southern [03:17] state, and the most obvious early example [03:20] of that violence was the Ku Klux Klan, [03:22] which did all sorts of different things. [03:23] But attacked everything from school teachers, [03:25] the politicians to farmers. And so these different waves of violence [03:29] really popped up especially during election days. [03:32] And so in 1875 Mississippi there was an organized overthrow [03:36] essentially of the state Republican party, which did include [03:40] African-American, there was violence at the poles in different [03:43] cities and that spread throughout the entire South. [03:46] 1876, there was violence in different places like Florida and South Carolina [03:50] and Louisiana that led to contested elections that ultimately [03:54] paved the way for reconstruction to end. [03:58] That overthrow was not put into law really until another generation, [04:03] let's say around 1900. [04:05] when Southern states, figured out ways to abrogate the 15th [04:10] Amendment, which had been enacted in reconstruction, [04:13] to guarantee black men's suffrage. [04:15] So once the 15th amendment became law [04:17] southern states couldn't disenfranchise African Americans simply by saying [04:22] Black people are no longer allowed to vote. [04:23] And so, in response to reconstruction, in order to eliminate [04:27] the black vote, they had to come up with new ideas [04:29] in order to make sure African Americans were taken off the voter [04:32] rolls and the most powerful of those methods was the literacy [04:36] test, which allow for local registrars in a County Courthouse [04:40] usually, to look at a candidate and give the candidate a literacy [04:45] test to see if they were qualified to register to vote [04:48] The nature of the test [04:49] usually didn't matter. [04:50] The person would just define whether they were qualified [04:52] to vote based on whether they thought they were white or black. [04:56] And so you had a period [04:58] from 1900 to 1965, the voting rights act, [05:03] where very few African-Americans were allowed to vote [05:07] throughout the entire South. [05:11] For a long, long time, reconstruction was portrayed by scholars, [05:17] but also by teachers and the general public as sort of the [05:21] lowest point in American history, a period [05:23] of corruption, misgovernment. [05:25] And this idea that reconstruction was a disaster was part of the [05:32] legitimation of the old, Jim Crow South. [05:35] The underlying message was the South was correct in taking [05:40] away the right to vote for black men and that if blacks were [05:45] given the right to vote again, [05:47] you just have another replay of the horrors of reconstruction. [05:50] But I think one of the things in American history that we often teach is that [05:54] there's a constant march toward things getting better. [05:56] And it's a little bit tricky to teach Reconstruction because [06:00] African Americans during reconstruction could vote in much of the South [06:04] and then things actually got a lot worse. [06:06] And so, it doesn't really fit into this narrative of constant progress [06:11] throughout America since the Civil War. [06:26] by suppression to Tamp, down the black vote, [06:30] after the black boat. [06:31] While she sent this African American, man to the United States. [06:34] After the 2020 elections. [06:37] We saw historical voters of color, turned out and a lot of first-time [06:41] voters, even during a global pandemic. [06:43] And after that we saw a republican-controlled [06:48] legislatures across the country drop hundreds of anti bloating [06:52] pills. And so when we saw that Collective activity happening, [06:55] we had to go to the federal government and ask for protection. [07:00] Hillary Holly works for fair fight, action, [07:02] in organization, working to fight, voter suppression [07:04] around the country. [07:05] The literacy test remain, a thing of the past many states [07:09] have enacted laws. [07:10] That Purge voter rolls in ways that Target minorities [07:12] or have made voting more difficult by closing polling places [07:16] in largely black areas. [07:17] Verified is not working to get legislation such as the John [07:21] Lewis Voting Rights Act passed in Congress to stop these tactics. [07:25] So we started working with Congress basically, [07:28] right out the gate in January 2021 to help ensure that the legislation [07:33] was drafted in a way that could actually Medicaid butter surprise [07:38] shed and combat, the real attacks that we're seeing in real-time [07:45] attended with the same, you know, outcome in mind to make it harder for [07:53] black people to vote to make sure that African-Americans [07:55] don't have equal standing of one, man. [07:58] One vote in the Democracy. [08:00] In order to ensure more weight control over our political [08:04] systems. [08:06] Please important to learn about reconstruction in American [08:09] history because that was the moment. [08:10] I think we're our democracy held the most promise for every [08:15] single person, loose every single male in the history of the [08:18] United States of America, regardless of race, [08:20] and I will fill that promise. [08:24] The people need to understand the history of voting rights [08:28] and voting right lost in the Reconstruction Era. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6145193/black-politicians-reconstruction/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6145193/black-politicians-reconstruction/"},"headline":"The Legacy of the Reconstruction Era’s Black Political Leaders","datePublished":"2022-02-07T21:16:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-10-14T09:18:50.011Z","description":"A short video on how Black politicians in the South after the Civil War provide context for voting rights battles today.","url":"https://time.com/6145193/black-politicians-reconstruction/","keywords":["Civil Rights","politics","Race","video","Explainer","nationpod"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4dc1b6f247c2c9a4/698a221822fb858239e2d16c/black-politicians-reconstruction.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Olivia B. 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