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In this sharecropping contract, farmer Thomas J. Ross agrees to employ Freedmen to plant and raise a crop on his Rosstown Plantation in Shelby County, Tennessee.

Democratic Party paramilitary groups also emerged in South Carolina during the 1876 state and national campaigns. There, members of these groups called themselves the “Red Shirts.” Their official battle plan called for Democratic clubs armed with rifles and pistols.

South Carolina governor Daniel Chamberlain sends a request to President Grant in 1876 for Federal intervention after the massacre at Hamburgh.

In 1874, Congress was debating a new civil rights bill that would end segregation of public transportation and public accommodations (such as hotels). Charles Hays of Alabama, a former slaveholder turned Republican congressman, supported the bill despite growing opposition, threats, and violence in his state. Here he addresses Congress to share his views.

Explore excerpts from the demands of the mostly Latinx students who led a series of school walkouts in Los Angeles in 1968.