By this time, the economies of Northern states were much less dependent on enslaved labor. The enslaved population in the South, over four million people, was considered self-sustaining — the domestic slave trade remained legal, and children of enslaved people were also automatically considered enslaved. As such, some Southern congressman joined with the North in voting to abolish the African slave trade. 

This document did nothing to free the millions of enslaved people in border states that were loyal to the Union, but it opened the door to the permanent abolition of slavery in the US. Lincoln worked with Congress to pass the 13th Amendment in January 1865, which abolished slavery across the United States.

News of the Emancipation Proclamation took two and a half years to reach the Western edge of the Confederacy. The proclamation was read by Union soldiers in Galveston Texas on June 19th, 1865 – an event that is now commemorated as “Juneteenth,” and was ultimately declared a Federal holiday in 2021.

Included as part of an amendment to a general amnesty bill for former Confederates, the 1875 Civil Rights Act guaranteed all citizens, regardless of color, access to accommodations, theaters, public schools, churches, and cemeteries. The bill further forbids the barring of any person from jury service on account of race, and provided that all lawsuits brought under the new law would be tried in federal, not state, courts.

In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled this act unconstitutional, nullifying it’s efforts until the return of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s.

One large insurance company pioneered what was known as the “industrial” life insurance policy – a coverage that cost only a few cents and paid for burial costs for the deceased. The low cost made these policies accessible to all people, regardless of race or economic standing, and the company was able to turn a profit on huge volume of policies sold.

In 1890, Mississippi law required voters to pay the poll tax before they could cast a ballot in elections. Between 1890 and 1908, South Carolina (1895), Louisiana (1898), North Carolina (1902), Alabama (1901), Virginia (1902), and Georgia (1908) adopted similar laws to exclude Blacks and make it harder for poor Whites to vote.

Literacy tests to determine voter eligibility were applied at the discretion of White registrars who used this power mainly against Blacks.

Many of these laws could have similarly disenfranchised poor White voters, if not for the “grandfather clause,” which exempted from eligibility tests those who were able to vote prior to the Civil War, or who had a father or grandfather who was previously able to vote.