26 TIME February 28/March 7, 2022
THE VIEW INBOX
THE RISK REPORT BY IAN BREMMER
Iran could
move quickly
toward
amassing
enough highly
enriched
uranium for
several bombsHISTORY
RECONSTRUCTION’S
BLACK POLITICIANS
At least 34 laws restricting
access to voting were passed
by 19 states in 2021, accord-
ing to the Brennan Center for
Justice.
Some historians argue
that this wave of laws making
it harder to vote echoes the
backlash to the electoral
gains made by African Ameri-
cans during Reconstruction
(1865–1877), the era of politi-
cal revolution in the aftermath
of the Civil War.
“Reconstruction was the
fi rst time that this country
tried to be an interracial
democracy—or a democracy,
in other words,” says Eric
Foner, Pulitzer Prize–winning
historian of Reconstruction.
Foner, the author of Free-
dom’s Lawmakers, estimates
that about 2,000 Black Ameri-
cans held public offi ce at the
local, state, and federal levels
during Reconstruction. One of
Black offi ceholders’ biggest
contributions was their role in
establishing state- sponsored
public schools. Among the
notable Black offi ceholders
in this era: Republican Hiram
Revels of Mississippi, the fi rst
Black U.S. Senator, and Robert
Smalls, who escaped enslave-
ment and went on to serve
fi ve terms in the U.S. House
of Representatives.
But Black offi ceholder
numbers started to decline
after 1877. Although the 15th
Amendment to the Constitution
said states couldn’t restrict
voting based on race, state
legislators passed laws that
mandated expensive poll taxes
(fees to vote) and literacy
tests (questions with no right
answers)—and subjected Afri-
can Americans to them more
than white Americans. It wasn’t
until nearly a century later that
the 1965 Voting Rights Act
made literacy tests and poll
taxes illegal.
—Olivia B. Waxman