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A Bureau agent standing between a group of enraged white people and a group of freedmen.

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On March 3rd, 1865, the Freedmen's Bureau was created. The purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau was to help smooth the transition from slavery to freedom. It was to help people who were formerly enslaved obtain shelter, healthcare, land, and many other necessities that they were previously denied. It operated until 1868, and it was abolished in 1872.

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President Abraham Lincoln on his deathbed

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On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died from the gunshot wound that he had obtained the night before. He had died almost a week after Robert E. Lee of the Confederate Army surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.  In Lincoln's last speech, he had mentioned black suffrage for soldiers and some others.

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Following President Lincoln's death, President Andrew Johnson was sworn into office. In May, he announced his plan of Presidential Reconstruction. This plan called for general amnesty and restoration of property — except for slaves — to all Southerners who will swear loyalty to the Union. However, he required that the South's large landowners and the Confederate leadership would need to petition him individually for petitions. He started showing more leniency in August and September, where he  ordered the restoration of all land to its former owners, including the land provided to freed slaves by General Sherman's January field order. He claimed that "white men alone must manage the South."

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Political drawing of Black Codes with Black people huddled, defenseless with white supremacists with weapons standing over them

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In Fall of 1865, elected Southern Confederates began to draft Black Codes. Black Codes restricted the rights of Black people in many different ways; freedmen were prohibited to work except as field hands, black people refusing to sign labor contracts could be punished, unemployed black men were be seized and auctioned to planters as laborers, black children were taken from their families and made to work.

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On December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified. This abolished slavery in America, except for when individuals have been convicted of crime.

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Klan members in their uniforms and their infamous symbol of the burning of the cross

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On December 24, 1865, America's most infamous hate groups was created. The Klu Klux Klan, or the KKK for short, was formed by a group of six Confederate veterans. They terrorized and used violent intimidation towards Black citizens and white citizens who supported them in acts of rape, lynching, and hate crimes.

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Newspaper clipping of the Civil Rights Bill

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The Civil Rights Bill was proposed in April 1866. It proposed giving citizenship and the rights of white citizens to all men in the United States "without distinction of race or color, or previous condition of slavery or involuntary servitude." It passed both houses of Congress. Despite its overwhelming support, President Johnson vetoed it, so Congress overrode the veto, passing the bill. It was the the first major piece of legislation enacted over a presidential veto.

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Black school being burned down by white rioters. 

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On May 1, 1866, in Memphis, Tennessee, white citizens and police stormed through the city. For three days, they terrorized the Black community living there: they pillaged and burned ninety Black-owned houses, four Black churches, and multiple Black schools. This was a historic massacre, and one of the worst crimes that occured in Memphis.

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Map of the Confederate states split into the five military districts

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From March 2, 1876 - March 11, 1868, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 were created. Congress divided the former Confederate states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina) into five districts, except for Tennessee. This made it easier for Northern troops to come to the five districts as the former Confederacy tried to rejoin America. Each of them needed to write new Constitutions and follow the laws of Reconstruction. The Northern troops being in the former Confederate states allowed Black people to have some respite, as Black codes were briefly paused.

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On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution was ratified. The 14th Amendment granted citizenship to everyone who was born or naturalized in the United States. This helped enslaved people because now all of them were citizens and were supposed to be treated as such.

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On the first presidential election that was held after the Civil War, on Nov. 3, 1868, Ulysses S. Grant defeated his Democratic opponent and became the 18th president of the United States. President Grant said that he wanted to protect the Constitutional rights of formerly enslaved people peoples as well as expand the Republican influence over America without causing another war. Black men in the South cast 700,000 votes for the Republican.

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Ex-Confederate states that were working on Constitutional Conventions.

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Black and white lawmakers begin to work together in the Southern states' Constitutional Conventions. This was the first political meetings in American history to include substantial numbers of black men. It also allowed Black people to have spaces where they could ensure their rights in the new states' Constitutions.

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Drawing of Black men voting in a presidential election.

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On February 3, 1870, the 15th Amendment was ratified. It granted Black men the right to vote in presidential elections.

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Ulysses S. Grant's Treaty of Annexation of Santo Domingo

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The Treaty of Annexation of Santo Domingo (which was what the Dominican Republic was called) was proposed in June 1870.  President Ulysses S. Grant wanted to annex the Dominican Republic as a territory and eventually make it a US state. This was because he viewed it as a stepping stone to to make slavery illegal in Cuba and Haiti.

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The aftermath of the Colfax massacre; families are hauling away their dead and grieving.

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On April 13, 1873, the White League, a white supremacist group who wanted white-only leadership in Louisiana, clashed with the all-black militia in Colfax, Louisiana. Although only three of the white supercists died, one hundred Black men were killed. Nearly half of the deaths of the Black militia members were in cold blood, after they had surrendered.

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Two white men threatening a Black man in front of a crowd.

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In 1875, the Mississippi Plan or "Shotgun Policy" was enacted in efforts to remove the Republicans from office. Democratic white men resorted to violence and intimidation against Black and white Republicans, sometimes outright murdering Black voters. They believed that this would help the conservative Democrats regain control of the state.

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Political cartoon of one hand stopping another from holding up a gun that lays over papers that stay "Tilden or blood" and "Are you ready for civil war?"

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After the Presidential Election in 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, both the candidates claimed victory. However, the Republicans eventually obtained presidency by agreeing to abandon Reconstruction policies.

Reconstruction policies officially ended. America systemically enforced segregation. Violations of Black civil rights were neglected again and again until after World War II.

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“Reconstruction Timeline.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/reconstruction-timeline/.

“America's Reconstruction: People and Politics After the Civil War.” America's Reconstruction: People and Politics after the Civil War, 2003, http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/exhibits/reconstruction/introduction.html.