The 14th Amendment Center

Retelling Frederick Douglass’ story, with a soundtrack — Harvard Gazette Senior composes musical about abolitionist’s early life.

news.harvard.edu/gazette/stor...

Print shows Frederick Douglass, head-and-shoulders portrait, facing right. Moss Engraving Company. John Wesley Cromwell, copyright claimant. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

From The Evening Star, a Washington, D.C. newspaper, on Feb. 25, 1895. At Douglass' Bier Thousands Throng to Gaze Upon the Dead Face. Impressive Funeral Services Today Eloquent Tributes to the Memory of the Great Negro Scenes at the Church The funeral of Frederick Douglass makes today historic to thousands of people in the District of Columbia. The colored schools of the city were closed, and among those of his own race the day was observed by the closing of places of business and the general cessation of their daily pursuits, to do honor to the dead. The funeral program had been until late yesterday broken in upon by pressure of various societies, who begged to be represented in the tributes of the occasion. The services were held in the Metropolitan A. M. E. Church, beginning at 2 o' clock, and were still in grogress [sic] when The Star went to press.

On this day in 1895, funeral services were held in Washington, D.C. for Frederick Douglass. The Library is home to the Frederick Douglass Papers, which include dozens of bereavement telegrams that were sent to his widow following his death. 🧵

Portrait of Hiram Rhodes Revels, America's first Black congressman, dressed in formal black suit against a blue background.

#OnThisDay in 1870, Hiram Rhodes Revels becomes the first Black person to serve in the U.S. Senate. #BlackHistoryMonth

Learn about Revel’s political career and the many obstacles he overcame to be elected:
https://ow.ly/zbKk50YcsJu

Ken Burns (@kenlburns) on Threads Today we celebrate the birthday of one of our country’s greatest scholars and activists W.E.B Du Bois. I’m looking forward to the new doc on his life and work, REBEL WITH A CAUSE. Here’s an early loo...

Celebrating the birthday of the great scholar and visionary W.E.B DuBois, whose meticulously-researched seminal work Black Reconstruction, is the essential historical account of the true story of Reconstruction and how it was destroyed.
www.threads.com/@kenlburns/p...

Today we honor Frederick Douglass — abolitionist, orator, and one of the most important constitutional thinkers of the 19th century. Douglass believed that the struggle for freedom was ultimately a struggle over citizenship: Who belongs? Who is protected? Who has power?

BREAKING: Judge Cobb has barred DHS from preventing members of Congress from visiting immigration detention facilities without notice, saying the administration's policy likely violated the law requiring their unfettered access. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Learn about Reconstruction. You can’t understand the U.S. without knowing the truth about Reconstruction.

Sources on the CMUC:

www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bl...

www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/...

www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropo...

Finally, the story of the CMUC is also a sobering reminder of the destructive force & resilience of white supremacy, which overcame the organization’s democracy work.

Because Black women always are.

The CMUC shows that Black people were co-creators of their own citizenship & freedom - refusing to wait for the official word before acting as citizens. And despite the fact that it was men who voted, I have no doubt that Black women were involved in the planning and preparation for CMUC activities.

Still, CMUC stands as a testament to Black political organizing, and to the vision of Black people to see freedom even before freedom was won. Their efforts confirm that preparation for power is a critical organizing strategy.

Litigation and activism to protect Black voting in the state continues.

It would take Brown v. Board of Ed. & the Civil Rights Movement to re-plant the seeds of democracy in that state. In 1990 Virginia elected the first Black Governor in the country, Douglas Wilder.
Photos: teen civil rights activist Barbara Johns, civil rights atty Oliver Hill, & Governor Wilder.

With the destruction of Reconstruction in full swing in the 1880s, the state passed a series of laws limiting voting, and a new state constitution in 1902, which ultimately disenfranchised 90% of the state’s Black voters & plunged the state into white supremacist rule for decades.

11. This is the constitution that facilitated Virginia’s readmission to the Union, in an act passed by Congress and signed by President Grant in 1870. The terms of the Virginia Readmission Act were recently (2 wks ago) the basis of a suit challenging the state’s felony disenfranchisement law.

10. Of the 104 delegates elected to the state constitutional convention, 24 were Black (depicted in the engraving below).Together these delegates were the framers of Virginia’s new constitution,which guaranteed voting rights, elected govt throughout the state, & a public school system for the state.

Two years later when the provisional Gov called for an election for delegates to the state constitutional convention, over 90% of Black men cast a ballot. Many whites sat out the election, refusing to participate in an election in which Black people could vote. Photo: “Colored” ballot box, Va.,1867.

That summer, the CMUC prepared “An Address from the Colored Citizens of Norfolk, VA to the people of the United States - a comprehensive brief (written as an open letter) setting for the case for Black suffrage, freedom from the coercive violence of the Black Codes, & the right to testify at trial.

And the CMUC organized its own polling place at an AME Church, where Black voters could cast an “unofficial ballot.” It is estimated that 1,000 Black people cast unofficial ballots.These came to be known as “freedom ballots,” demonstrating voting strength, & a dry run in preparation for suffrage.

They selected members to approach those polls in groups of 10. Some were prevented from voting, but when the ballots were counted, 300 Black men had cast ballots that day.

5. When elections for the General Assembly were announced to be held a month later,the CMUC focused on organizing Black men to vote. They knew that at most precincts white men would prevent Black men from voting, so they planned to approach polling places where they thought they had the best chance.

4. Black Codes that controlled Black labor and mobility, and to press for the right to vote. They formed the Colored Monitor Club (CMUC), the first Black political organization in the U.S.

Norfolk had been under Union control since 1862, so Black people were living as free people in the city at least since the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. A week before the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, Black ppl began organizing in Norfolk to resist the

But this image is from an 1867 cover of Harper’s Weekly and depicts the first time Black men in Virginia voted - BEFORE EVEN THE 14TH AMENDMENT WAS RATIFIED. It is a testament to Black political organizing - even before the Civil War was over.

Week 1 - Black History Month 2026
1. You may have seen this image of Black men voting during Reconstruction, and assumed it is a depiction of voting after the passage of the 15th Amendment (which outlaws denying the right to vote based on race).

It’s Black History Month 2026. All month we’ll be featuring stories from Reconstruction and about the 14th Amendment that are not widely known. We must know our history.

I got you! Follow the thread.

You can read the full opinion here:

nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Beyond this being a victory for the restoration of voting rights to returning citizens, it is a thrilling use of a Reconstruction statute designed to protect Black citizenship rights. It rebukes the effect of a felony disenfranchisement law that strips voting from 10% of adult Black Virginians.