*On this date in 1866, the 24th Infantry Regiment (one of the Buffalo Soldier regiments) was organized. The United States Congress reorganized the regular army into five artillery, ten cavalry, and forty-five infantry regiments. Six regiments were reserved for black enlisted personnel in partial recognition of black soldiers’ role during the Civil War. All the enlisted soldiers were […]
learn moreOn this date in 1866, the New Orleans riot occurred.
Angered by the enactment of the Black Codes in Louisiana, and by the legislature’s refusal to give black men the vote, the Radical Republicans in Louisiana reconvened the Constitutional Convention of 1864. Only 25 white delegates met in New Orleans, but another 200 supporters, who were primarily African American veterans from the Civil War, joined them.
learn more*On this date, 1867, Alabama State University (ALASU) was founded. It is a public Historically Black University (HBCU) in Montgomery, Alabama, and a Thurgood Marshall College Fund member school. ALASU began as the Lincoln Normal School of Marion in Marion, Ala. In December 1873, the State Board accepted the transfer of title to the school after a legislative act was passed authorizing […]
learn more*On this date in 1867. The Peabody Fund was established. The Peabody Fund provided monies for construction, endowments, scholarships, teacher and industrial education for newly freed slaves.
It is considered by scholars to be one of the first truly modern philanthropies because of the way it went about giving its capital. The Peabody trustees devised a system of self-help by which the Foundation would provide challenge grants to local communities. Thus, the relatively meager return on the Fund’s principal could be leveraged. Help would be targeted strategically.
learn more*The Reconstruction Acts were decided on this date in 1867. The 40th United States Congress passed four statutes during the Reconstruction Era, which addressed the requirement for Southern States to be readmitted to the Union. The initial legislation, called the Military Reconstruction Acts, was passed on March 4, 1867. The title was “An act to provide for the […]
learn moreThe founding of Howard High School in Wilmington, Delaware in 1867 is celebrated on this date.
For more than a century this historic institution played a central role in educating the Black Community of Wilmington, Delaware. The Society for the Improvement of Morals of the People of African Descent was active in its beginning. The school was named for General Oliver Otis Howard, who worked with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Edwina B. Kruse served as Howard’s first principal between 1871 and 1922. From 1902 to 1920, Alice Dunbar Nelson was a teacher and administrator there.
learn more*Independence Day 1867, the political term scalawag is briefly defined. A Scalawag was a white-American Southerner who supported Blacks after the American Civil War. Like the term carpetbagger, the word has a history of use as a slur in one-sided Southern debates. The opponents of the scalawags claimed they were disloyal to traditional values. The term is commonly used in historical studies as a neutral descriptor […]
learn moreOn this date in 1867, emancipated Blacks began influencing South Carolina politics, when citizens of the state endorsed their constitutional convention and selected state delegates.
learn more*On this date in 1868, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was adopted. Approved as one of the Reconstruction Amendments, it is one of the most important American amendments to the present day. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment […]
learn moreOn this date in 1868, the Opelousas massacre occurred. That city in Louisiana was the site where local Blacks lost their lives by violent whites (many of them Confederate veterans and prominent citizens).
The slaughter started when three local whites beat up an 18-year old man named Emerson Bentley, a white editor (and non-Louisianan) of the local Republican newspaper and a teacher with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Reacting to Bentley’s beating, local Blacks came to his rescue. The sheriff arrested 12, who were taken from jail and hung that night.
learn more*On this date in 1868, Cuba’s Ten Years’ War began. Also known as the Great War (Guerra Grande) and the War of ’68, it was part of Cuba’s fight for independence from Spain. Cuban-born planters and other wealthy natives led the uprising. Sugar mill owner Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers proclaimed independence and […]
learn moreOn this date in 1868, a Black senator was assassinated in South Carolina.
B.F. Randolph, a member of the South Carolina State Legislature during Reconstruction, was murdered at Cokesburg in Abbeville, S.C. He had been on an election tour and the night before had delivered an address at the Abbeville court house. The next day he took the train to Cokesburg, put his baggage in the ladies car, and went to the train’s platform at Hodges Depot.
learn moreOn this date in 1868, the first Black man was elected to the U.S. Congress
John Willis Menard defeated a White candidate, 5,107 to 2,833, in an election in Louisiana’s Second Congressional District to fill an unexpired term in the Fortieth Congress.
learn more*The site of Fort Sill was founded on this date in 1869. Located in Lawton, Oklahoma, this was a strategic post-American Civil War location that leveraged the use of Black soldiers against Native Americans to expand the white government’s land acquisition in the West. Maj founded Fort Still. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan led a white-American […]
learn more*The Colored National Labor Union (CNLU) first met on this date in 1869. Established during a 4-day convention, the CNLU was formed by Blacks to organize their labor collectively nationally. The CNLU, like other labor unions in the United States, was created to improve the working conditions and quality of life for its members. During the […]
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