Until Reconstruction-era acts and amendments to the Constitution established national citizenship and Black male suffrage, in the eyes of the law free Black people were at best second-class, unwanted citizens in most states of the Union. At worst, they were lumped together with the rest of the Black population—around 90 percent of which remained enslaved […]

Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/04/20/the-beautiful-struggle-antebellum-black-citizenship-remaking-the-republic/