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13th amendment approved in January. Ratified in December. Abolished slavery in the United States.
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Assassination of President Lincoln, April 15. Vice President Andrew Johnson becomes president.
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the ku klux klan was created in tenessee
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Civil Rights Act passed despite Presedent Johnson's earlier veto.
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Freedmans bureua responsibilities and powers expanded by Congress. Legislation is vetoed by Johnson but Congress overrides his veto.
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A three-day race riot begins in Memphis, Tennessee. When it is over, forty-six blacks will have died.
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Congress approves the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which makes it illegal for any state to deny equality before the law to any male citizen.
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President Andrew Johnson embarks on what will prove to be a disastrous "swing around the circle" speaking tour.
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Former Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest becomes the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, a white terrorist group formed a year earlier.
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A black majority is elected to the South Carolina legislature.
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U.S. senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts offers a fierce argument in favor of removing President Andrew Johnson from office.
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Ulysses S. Grant is elected President.
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The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) is founded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
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The 15th Amendment is enacted. It gives black males the right to vote. Despite this right, some Southern states add grandfather clauses to their state Constitutions to counter this new right.
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Hiram Rhoades Revels is the first black elected to the U.S. Senate and Joseph Hayne Rainey becomes the first black elected U.S. Representative.
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The Ku Klux Klan Act is passed. It gives the federal government power to punish violators of civil rights laws.
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Congress declares that the Indian nations are no longer sovereign, an act that will lead to the gradual relocation of all Native Americans onto reservations
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The Freedman's Bureau is terminated.
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The Liberal Republican Party nominates New York newspaper editor Horace Greeley for president. Two months later, the Democratic Party also nominates Greeley.
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The Amnesty Act is passed. It removes the restrictions placed on Confederate office-holders.
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Democrats gain control over the House of Representatives and the Senate.
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The Civil Rights Act is passed. It gives blacks equal access to public accommodations.
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Federal troops are withdrawn from the state capitols of South Carolina and Louisiana, allowing white supremacists known as "Redeemers" to take control of these states' governments.
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Republican Rutherford B. Hayes becomes president. The Compromise of 1877 allows for the withdrawal of federal troops from the South.
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The Recronstruction Era ends.