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These documents include registration documents for William Jasper, his wife Sarah, and his daughters Susan and Eliza, from 1853 and 1858. Especially after Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, Virginia's free blacks faced copious laws restraining…

This first-hand account of colored schools in the Mount Vernon and Sully school districts in Fairfax County are taken from diary entries and letters.

Top photo: African American school, Halifax County
Both the state and local governments supported the public school system, but black schools were chronically underfunded. Compare this primitive, wooden African American school in South Boston,…

In this typical southern classroom of the early 1900s, barefoot children work under the supervision of a single teacher, who taught all subjects, ages, and grades. Courtesy Library of Congress.

The fight over civil rights was never just a southern issue. This ballot is from the race for governor of Ohio in 1867. Allen Granbery Thurman’s campaign included the promise of barring black citizens from voting. He narrowly lost to future…

Restrictive signs sprang up across the southern and western landscape. They were constant and humiliating reminders with a common message—“stay in your place.”

This chart is for use by teachers and students so they can compare the two conventions on: who attended each convention, what the issues were, and what was decided.