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On October 22, 1867, African American men voted in Virginia for the first time. The army officers who conducted the election recorded the votes of white and black men on separate lists, and in King George County (and likely in other counties as well)…

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…

The Fourteenth Amendment consists of five sections that conferred citizenship on former slaves and protected the rights of citizens from state abridgement thereof. It was passed by Congress in 1866 and ratified in 1868.

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…

This page of the official roster of the convention contains the names of twenty-three of the 105 delegates, how many days each attended during the last two months that it met, and how much payment they were due for their service.

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…