The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (Kerner Commission), chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner Jr., releases its report on the causes of the 1967 urban riots that killed 43 in Detroit, 26 in Newark, and caused casualties in 23 other cities. The Commission’s central finding …
Kerner CommissionGovernor Otto Kerner Jr.President Lyndon B. JohnsonRichard Nixonracial-injusticeinstitutional-racismgovernment-inactionurban-policylaw-and-order-politics
A Detroit Police Department raid on an unlicensed after-hours bar in the heart of the city’s predominantly African American inner city ignites one of the most violent and destructive civil disturbances in American history. The five-day uprising leaves 43 people dead, more than 1,000 injured, …
Detroit Police DepartmentMichigan National GuardInsurance industryCorporate interestsDetroit residentsracial-injusticecorporate-disinvestmentwhite-flighturban-decayeconomic-abandonment
Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats meet secretly at Wormley’s Hotel in Washington to negotiate the Compromise of 1877—an unwritten political deal settling the disputed 1876 presidential election by abandoning federal protection of Black civil rights. Southern Democrats agree to accept …
Rutherford B. Hayes (President-elect)Southern DemocratsNorthern RepublicansDisenfranchised Black Americansdemocratic-erosioninstitutional-captureracial-injusticepolitical-corruption
President Andrew Johnson vetoes legislation to extend and expand the Freedmen’s Bureau, shocking Republican supporters and demonstrating his commitment to sabotaging Reconstruction. Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced the bill on January 5, 1866, to expand the Bureau’s power to …
Andrew JohnsonLyman TrumbullRepublican CongressFreedmen's Bureaureconstruction-sabotagepresidential-corruptioninstitutional-captureracial-injustice
Alabama Governor Robert Patton authorizes convict leasing, declaring that Black prisoners “should feel the hardship of labor in iron and coal mines” rather than mere confinement. The state begins leasing prisoners to private companies that pay monthly fees while providing minimal food, …
Robert Patton (Alabama Governor)Alabama State LegislatureCoal Mining CompaniesRailroad Companiesprison-industrial-complexsystematic-corruptioninstitutional-captureracial-injustice
Mississippi becomes the first Southern state to enact comprehensive Black Codes, creating a legal framework to re-enslave freed people through criminalization. The laws include draconian vagrancy statutes allowing arrest of any African American without a written labor contract, apprenticeship …
Mississippi State LegislatureGovernor William L. SharkeySouthern Planterssystematic-corruptioninstitutional-captureprison-industrial-complexracial-injustice
President Andrew Johnson issues his first amnesty proclamation on May 29, 1865, beginning a systematic campaign to pardon Confederate leaders and restore their political power—directly undermining Reconstruction and enabling the restoration of white supremacist control in the South. Johnson’s …
Andrew JohnsonConfederate LeadersRepublican Congressreconstruction-sabotageinstitutional-capturepresidential-corruptionracial-injustice