1877 Archives

historical marker for the Coal Creek War, 1891-92

Oct. 31, 1891: Coal Creek War

A labor uprising to protest convict leasing led to the Coal Creek War.

Nov. 8, 1892: Massive Labor Strike in New Orleans

Thirty thousand factory and dock workers staged the 1892 New Orleans general strike.

Slave pension broadside | Zinn Education Project

Nov. 28, 1898: First National Convention of the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association

The Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association was founded with a dual mission to organize mutual aid for its members and to pass federal pension legislation that would compensate every formerly enslaved person.

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire

Book — Non-fiction. By Jonathan M. Katz. 2022. 432 pages.
This book traces a path from the first wave of U.S. overseas expansionism to the rise of fascism in the 1930s to the crises of democracy in our own time.

Teaching Activity by Jonathan M. Katz

Dec. 1, 1865: Shaw University Established

Shaw University was established as a co-ed campus with support from private donors and the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands. It is the second oldest HBCU in the South.

March 30, 1886: Black Civil War Veterans Secure a Cemetery in Norfolk

The West Point Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia was established to provide a burial area for Black soldiers and sailors who fought to preserve the Union.

March 17, 1886: Carroll County Courthouse Massacre

The Carroll County Courthouse Massacre left 23 Black people dead when an armed white mob attacked an ongoing trial.

Oct. 15, 1883: Civil Rights Act of 1875 Declared Unconstitutional

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1875, forbidding discrimination in hotels, trains, and other public spaces, was unconstitutional and not authorized by the 13th or 14th Amendments of the Constitution.

Oct. 22, 1883: Frederick Douglass Denounces Supreme Court Ruling

In this speech, Frederick Douglass denounced the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, in which the Supreme Court held that the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments did not empower Congress to outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals.

Aug. 31, 1895: Julius Taylor Publishes Broad Ax

Julius Taylor founded and ran Broad Ax, a Utah-based Black newspaper which challenged commonly accepted beliefs about politics and religion at the end of the twentieth century.

June 10, 2018: Ancestral Land Returned to Ponca Tribe

Along the “Trail of Tears” in Neligh, Nebraska, a farmer signed a deed to return ancestral land to the Ponca Tribe.

A broadside distributed by Benjamin Singleton advertising migration to Kansas, 1878.

April 15, 1878: Real Estate and Homestead Association Relocated

The Real Estate and Homestead Association helped organize travel and settlement for African Americans, “Exodusters,” who fled the South because of racial violence and “bulldozing” by white supremacist groups.

April 18, 1877: Nicodemus Town Company Founded

Six Black Kansans and a white developer created the Nicodemus Town Company. With the goal of establishing an all-Black settlement on the Great Plains, W. H. Smith and W. R. Hill advertised the town as a haven for Black migrants.

Printed Edition of Our National Report Now Available

This month we released a printed edition of our national report, Erasing the Black Freedom Struggle: How State Standards Fail to Teach the Truth About Reconstruction. Thanks to the generous support of a donor, we can mail copies of the report to teacher educators, state and school district policymakers, and staff at historical societies.

A landscape painting of historic Sanford, Florida.

Sept. 29, 1877: City of Sanford Incorporated

Originally inhabited by Mayaca Indigenous communities and site of the Seminole Wars in the early-to-mid 1800s, the town of Sanford, Florida was incorporated during Reconstruction.

July 18, 1890: George Washington Williams Pens Letter Exposing Atrocities in the Congo

Hoping to spark a movement in protest of the Belgian government’s role in its African colony, historian George Washington Williams wrote an open letter to Belgian King Leopold II exposing atrocities in the Congo.

Feb. 20, 1884: Indian Industrial School Opens in Nebraska

The Indian Industrial School of Genoa, Nebraska, the fourth non-reservation boarding school, was established by the Office of Indian Affairs.

Mamie Tape Fights to Go to School: Based on a True Story

Picture book. Written by Traci Huahn and illustrated by Michelle Jing Chan. 2024. 40 pages.
This picture book tells the true story of a fight for access to public education by an 8-year-old Chinese-American girl, Mamie Tape, and her parents.

May 27, 1887: Massacre at Hells Canyon

In eastern Oregon, in an area now known as Chinese Massacre Cove, a group of white horse thieves murdered 34 Chinese laborers in a brutal act of white supremacist violence in the Hells Canyon Massacre.

March 22, 1893: First Women’s Collegiate Basketball Game

In 1893, the first ever women’s college basketball game was played at Smith College, a historically women’s college in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Aug. 3, 1885: Florida Constitution Adopted

The Florida Constitution of 1885 mandated separate and unequal educational systems for Black and white students, reinforcing racial segregation.

Will’s Race for Home

Book — Historical fiction. By Jewell Parker Rhodes. 2025. 208 pages.
A chapter book on the experience of a late 19th century era Black family participating in the Oklahoma Land Rush.

Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre

The elected and interracial Reconstruction era local government was deposed in a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Freedom Was in Sight: A Graphic History of Reconstruction in the Washington, D.C., Region

Book — Non-fiction. By Kate Masur and illustrated by Elizabeth Clarke. 2024. 192 pages.
This graphic history reveals the hopes and betrayals of Reconstruction, a critical period in American history.

May 3, 1898: Septima Clark Born

Educator and civil rights organizer Septima Clark was born in South Carolina.

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