This composite set of sketches illustrates the variety of ways in which African Americans served the United States Army, as laborers and scouts, as drovers, as washer women, and as soldiers.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society opened the Richmond Theological School for Freedmen in 1865. Its first classes met in the former slave jail of Richmond trader Robert Lumpkin, where iron bars remained in the windows. It was the first…
A former slave in Southampton County, John Brown emerged as a leader among the freedpeople there after the Civil War. As a candidate for the convention called in 1867 to write a new state constitution as required by federal law, he had ballots like…
Virginia's constitutional convention met in Richmond from December 3, 1867 until April 17, 1868. Twenty-four of the delegates were African Americans, four of whom are identified in this image: Willis A. Hodges, of Princess Anne County; Lewis Lindsey…