M. Revels of Mississippi and black representatives of the US Congress during the Reconstruction Era following the American Civil War, circa 1870-1875.Archive Photos/Getty Images Yet America’s ...

Congress also created the Freedmen’s Bureau ... he published in 1935 his monumental Black Reconstruction. The book traced the origins of the violence that Wells denounced.

Hiram Revels, the first Black US senator, took office in the late 1800s as part of a wave of African American lawmakers during the Reconstruction era, but he was elected by the Mississippi ...

There was one other Reconstruction-era Black senator from Mississippi, Blanche Bruce. After he left the Senate in 1881, Mississippi passed laws—part of a wave of new Jim Crow laws—blocking ...

In those days, state legislators elected United States Senators, and during Reconstruction, Mississippi’s legislature elected two black Senators. The first of these came to power on February 25 ...

One of the earliest Memorial Day observances occurred on May 1, 1865. Organized by freed slaves and white missionaries.

But the idea that Reconstruction-era historians hid ... only nine of the next 140 Black members of Congress belonged to the GOP. We rate this claim PARTLY FALSE based on our research.

WASHINGTON ‒ California Sen. Laphonza Butler is the lone African American woman in the Senate and only the third Black woman to ever serve in the chamber. Six months into the job, the Democratic ...

Alabama has elected 190 members to the U.S. House for over 205 years, but it achieved a first last week: Two Black residents from Alabama took the oath of office to serve in the U.S. House at the ...

This story originally appeared as part of NPR's live coverage of the 2024 election. For more election coverage from the NPR Network head to our live updates page. Two states elected Black women ...