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As required by federal law to be readmitted to the United States, a convention met to write a new state constitution. It reformed local government on the more democratic model of the New England township; it required the General Assembly to create a…

Opponents of the constitution produced this political broadside to frighten white Virginians into voting against ratification of the constitution by spreading fears that African Americans would be able to beat white children in the new public schools…

This page from the convention's attendance book records the attendance and per diem allowances for Delegate William H. Andrews, who represented Isle of Wight and Surry Counties. A native of New Jersey, Andrews moved to Virginia to teach at the end of…

After the money the convention appropriated to pay its expenses had been exhausted, the convention required the auditor of public accounts to issue coupons to cover the unpaid per diem allowances of convention members. The delegates either redeemed…

This composite photograph includes 108 of the 132 members of the House of Delegates elected for the term that met in three sessions between December 6, 1871 and April 2, 1873. Thirteen of the African American delegates are included along the bottom…

The Republican slate of candidates in 1869 included the current governor Henry Horatio Wells, the current attorney general Thomas Russell Bowden, and an African American physician, Joseph Dennis Harris, for lieutenant governor. In the election, the…

This 1869 lithograph from the Richmond studio of lithographer Charles Ludwig illustrated one fear that white Virginians entertained after the Civil War, that unscrupulous politicians would use government jobs in the post office or federal customs…

For decades, Virginia localities kept separate registers for African American and white voters. These registers are for Southampton County and record the African Americans and whites who voted at the first precinct of the second magisterial district…

These two photographs show some of Virginia's first interracial jury members. In May 1867, the United States Circuit Court for the District of Virginia appointed a grand jury composed of African American and white men. The court also named African…

On January 11, 1871, entrepreneur and woman suffrage advocate Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to address a congressional committee. In her remarks she declared that the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments granted women the right to vote. She…