1. Successes and Failures
Reconstruction
Successes and Failures

3. The Ku Klux Klan was just one of a number of vigilante groups that arose after the war to terrorize African Americans and Republicans throughout the South. The KKK brought violence into the voting polls, the workplace, and — as seen in this Harper’s Weekly print — the homes of black Americans.
Frank Bellew, “Visit of the Ku-Klux,” Harper’s Weekly, 1872.

9. On June 7, 1892, at Royal and Press streets, Homer Plessy bought a ticket in New Orleans for a Covington-bound train. As he climbed into a car reserved for white people, he braced for trouble. In fact, he was counting on it. Plessy -- a Creole shoemaker of color -- was arrested and ignited a case that would lead to the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld racial segregation for 62 years.
Plessy lost his Supreme Court case, with the court's 7-1 ruling upholding "separate but equal" statutes and giving legal cover to the Jim Crow laws that would govern the majority of the 20th century.