1870

The fifteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, securing the right to vote for black adult males.

Congress passes the First Enforcement Act to protect the rights of African Americans.

Joseph Hayne Rainey is the first black elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Hiram Revels is the first black elected to the U.S. Senate. In all, twenty-two blacks are elected to Congress during Reconstruction.

For the first time, African Americans are listed by name in a U.S. census.

Whites in Virginia and North Carolina vote in Redeemer governments.

Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia are readmitted to the Union and are permitted to have representatives in Congress.

Pennsylvania, the home of the oldest and largest northern free black community at the time of the Civil War and a major center for the abolition movement, grants the franchise to black men after thirty-two years of disfranchisement.