“The Fifteenth Amendment in Flesh and Blood,” 1870–1901

During the five years following the Civil War, the Republican Party spearheaded congressional efforts to rebuild the South and readmit the former Confederate states during a period known as Reconstruction. Congress passed a series of laws and constitutional amendments to protect individual civil and political rights, guarantee equal protection of the law, and prohibit discrimination in public accommodations.

This was a moment of vast possibility for Black Americans, and they seized the opportunity to serve in local, state, and federal offices. By February 1870, Hiram R. Revels of Mississippi joined the Senate, and Rainey was sworn in to the House that December. Including Revels and Rainey, southern states sent 20 Black Representatives to the House, and southern state legislatures elected two Black Senators over the next three decades. Many Black lawmakers had been enslaved before the Civil War. Yet, as Members of Congress, they were empowered to reshape the very laws that had been previously designed to restrict them.

This section traces the rise and fall of Black representation in Congress in the nineteenth century. Black Members of Congress arrived in Washington from states rife with discord and division. While the Republican Party had established a strong presence across the South, building a base of support from Black voters in the years following the war, the Democratic Party coalesced around White supremacists who were determined to regain control of state and local governments in the region. African Americans often faced violence and intimidation at the polls and appealed to the federal government to intervene and protect Black voting rights.

Against this backdrop, Black Members proposed legislation, engaged in debate, and tried to shape the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill. Black lawmakers in the early 1870s influenced debate on proposed civil rights legislation, called for a national education policy, and urged the federal government to act to protect the rights of individuals in the South. Several, including Rainey and Robert Brown Elliott of South Carolina, offered key arguments during debate in the House on congressional action to undermine the Ku Klux Klan and pass the Civil Rights Act of 1875.

But as lawmakers and the President increasingly turned away from the goals of Reconstruction, Black Members became more isolated. They continued to advocate for the interests of African Americans and remained committed to building a more egalitarian society. Southern Democrats orchestrated a reign of terror to disenfranchise Black voters, implement discriminatory laws, and roll back the gains of Reconstruction. During the final decade of the nineteenth century, only five Black Members of Congress served in the House. By 1901, the array of legal and extralegal means established across the former Confederacy to preserve Democratic control had thoroughly disenfranchised African Americans.

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