Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction

Between 1865 and 1876, about two thousand blacks held elective and appointive offices in the South. A few, such as the senator from Mississippi Blanche K. Bruce, are well known, but most have languished in obscurity, omitted from official state histories. Prize-winning historian Eric Foner profiles more than 1,500 black legislators, state officials, sheriffs, justices of the peace, and constables. Essential reading for anyone interested in the scope of black achievement during Reconstruction, Freedom's Lawmakers includes biographical sketches of each officeholder (some necessarily brief because so little is known) and many photographs.