Nov. 10, 1898: Wilmington Massacre
The elected and interracial Reconstruction era local government was deposed in a coup d’etat in Wilmington, North Carolina.
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Period: 1877
Industrial Revolution: 1877 – 1899
Oct. 12, 1898: Battle of Virden
A small band of striking coal miners in southern Illinois called out Chicago coal barons and stood their ground at Virden.
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Nov. 1, 1890: Mississippi Constitution
Mississippi adopted a state constitution with poll tax and literacy tests to roll back the gains of the Reconstruction era.
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Nov. 23, 1887: Thibodaux Massacre
Between 30-60 striking Black Louisiana sugarcane workers were massacred.
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Oct. 18, 1898: U.S. Troops Raised U.S. Flag Over Puerto Rico
U.S. troops raised the U.S. flag over Puerto Rico.
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Oct. 31, 1891: Coal Creek War
A labor uprising to protest convict leasing led to the Coal Creek War.
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Nov. 8, 1892: Massive Labor Strike in New Orleans
Thirty thousand factory and dock workers staged the 1892 New Orleans general strike.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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