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Peter Jacob Carter won election to the House of Delegates in 1871 to represent Northampton County. He served eight consecutive years and became a leader in the Republican Party.

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…

In 1867 a former enslaved man named Peter Wiggins petitioned the Westmoreland County Court to gain custody of the two sons and two daughters he and Malinda Thompson had before the Civil War; but because Wiggins had been married to a woman named Ann…

For several months after the end of the war, the army stationed soldiers, including African Americans, throughout Virginia to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and protect the freedpeople. White Lunenburg County residents petitioned Governor…

In November 1865, the Norfolk County Court petitioned the officer of the Freedmen's Bureau in Norfolk to take away the firearms belonging to African Americans. Local white residents had complained complained about African Americans "in the habit of…