Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862-1877

Summary

Following the end of the Civil War, Mississippians responded to broader movements in the country, to changes in the economy, and to congressional initiatives as they worked to recover from the devastation of war and pursue new expressions of freedom. Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862–1877 is a compelling account of how Black Mississippians embraced this freedom and how white Mississippians could not.

Recording the mechanics of how the Confederate states were allowed to resume representation in Congress, the restoration of civil governments, and the political freedoms the formerly enslaved people acquired, this book documents the ways economic freedoms evolved. Jere Nash begins this exploration with how the formerly enslaved men and women changed the political landscape for Abraham Lincoln by taking matters into their own hands as the Union Army moved into Mississippi in 1862. Nash then traces the federal occupation of the state, the adoption of the infamous Black Codes by the state legislature in 1865, the drafting and approval of the new constitution in 1869, the selection of the first two Black men ever to serve in the US Senate, and the use of terror and fraud by white Democrats to steal the election of 1875 and regain political power. Reconstruction in Mississippi, 1862–1877 is a comprehensive history of this turbulent and eventful era in Mississippi.