Voting For Freedmen
The Freedmen's rights to vote had been a huge deal. African Americans were finally allowed to have a say in the government for the first time. Even though there were groups like the Ku Klux Klan to try and prevent them from voting, the Georgia Act stopped the violent operations and now they were able to vote without worry. In 1868, they helped elect a Republican Governor They also helped elect 29 African Americans to the Georgia house of representatives and three African Americans to the Georgia senate.
The Union League
The Union League formed during reconstruction. It was a group of Republicans that joined together to talk about politics. It soon had become the freedmen's political organization and they would meet at church meetings, picnics and even family gatherings to talk about politics.
Henry McNeal Turner
Henry McNeal Turner was a minister and a politician. In 1863 during the Civil War, he was the black chaplain in the United States Colored Troops. Afterward, he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. He was then elected into the state legislature in 1868 during reconstruction by the hlep of several African American voters. He was expelled in September 1868 on the grounds that he had the right to vote, but not spacifically the right to hold political office. After being expelled, in 1880 he was elected to be the first southern bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Aaron A. Bradley
Bradley first worked as a shoemaker in Augusta. He ran away to the North where he became a lawyer. In 1865 he moved back to Georgia and was a member of the black delegation to the constitutional convention. He was elected state senator from the First District in 1868. Despite his past, Bradley rallied plantation blacks around Savannah insisting that the former slaves be given land of their own.
Tunis G. Campbell
Campbell was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and in 1864 he was appointed to the Freedmen's Bureau in Georgia. In 1867 he was elected to the state constitutional convention. Then he became a state senator from the Second Congressional District. Around Darien in McIntosh County, he built a successful political machine.