Proclamation 9567-Establishment of the Reconstruction Era National Monument
Issued 2017-01-12 by Barack Obama
Plain-English Overview
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President Obama established a new national monument in Beaufort County, South Carolina, to commemorate the Reconstruction Era. This period, which lasted from the early Civil War years until the 1890s when Jim Crow segregation began, was when the nation attempted to integrate millions of newly freed African Americans into American society after slavery ended. During this time, constitutional amendments abolished slavery, guaranteed equal protection under the law, and prohibited racial discrimination in voting.
Beaufort County was chosen because it was one of the first places where formerly enslaved people could begin living in free society. In November 1861, Union forces took control of the area's Sea Islands, and more than 10,000 enslaved African Americans refused to flee with their former owners. The area became the site of the Port Royal Experiment, a government-supported effort to help former slaves become self-sufficient, and saw many important firsts including the earliest African American schools, the first Black soldiers enlisted in the military, and early attempts to distribute land to freed people.
The monument preserves locations in and around Beaufort County, St. Helena Island, and Port Royal that tell the story of this transformative period in American history. These sites represent both the hopes and disappointments of Reconstruction, illustrating the challenges the nation faced regarding land ownership, labor, education, and political participation after the end of slavery—struggles that eventually led to the civil rights movement a century later.
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Official Summary
Administration of Barack Obama, 2017 Proclamation 9567—Establishment of the Reconstruction Era National Monument January 12, 2017 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation The Reconstruction Era, a period spanning the early Civil War years until the start of Jim Crow racial segregation in the 1890s, was a time of significant transformation in the United States, as the Nation grappled with the challenge of integrating millions of newly freed African Americans into its social, political, and economic life. It was in many ways the Nation's Second Founding, as Americans abolished slavery and struggled earnestly, if not always successfully, to build a nation of free and equal citizens. During Reconstruction, Congress passed the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth constitutional amendments that abolished slavery, guaranteed due process and equal protection under the law, and gave all males the ability to vote by prohibiting voter discrimination based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Ultimately, the unmet promises of Reconstruction led to the modern civil rights movement a century later. The Reconstruction Era began when the first United States soldiers arrived in slaveholding territories, and enslaved people on plantat