The website Facing History and Ourselves has six tables that break down data about the more than 1,500 African Americans who were government officeholders during Reconstruction. The tables give information on where they lived, what positions they held, etc. One fact that surprised me was that a majority of the officeholders had been slaves at one time. You can find the tables here.
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Thank you for this very useful and interesting set of tables.
I am trying to find out what percentage of southern reconstruction officeholders were black.
Maybe 1500 is a large number of officeholders, but out of how many? Were there 1500 african americans out of 2000 total offices? Or out of 200,000?
Considering that many (most?) southern white men were ineligible for office after their treason, maybe these 1500, although a great stride forward for the former slaves, still demonstrate the many obstacles remaining against them — even during reconstruction.