Louisiana Ku Klux Klan members threaten violence against African Americans and Republicans if they vote in state elections. As a result, Democrats return to power and continue discriminatory practices.

Sociologist and author W.E.B. DuBois is born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He will go on to become the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard University.

The Hampton Institute is established by ex-Union officer Samuel Chapman Armstrong as a coeducational college in Hampton, Virginia.

Atlanta University President and educator John Hope was born on this date in Augusta, Georgia.

Oscar J. Dunn became the first Black lieutenant-governor on this date in Louisiana.

Eighty-five African Americans and seventy white representatives meet in Columbia, South Carolina, at the opening of the state's General Assembly. It is the first and last U.S. legislature with an African American majority.

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. The amendment gives freed slaves full citizenship and equal protection under the laws, however it does not spell out the extent of integration with white America.

Arkansas Governor Clayton Powell declares martial law throughout ten counties and mobilizes the state militia in response to an emerging threat from the Ku Klux Klan.

Howard University Medical School opens its doors, with an initial class of eight students. The coeducational school is open to both blacks and whites.

Ragtime musician Scott Joplin is born in Texas. His 1899 hit "Maple Leaf Rag" made the genre of ragtime music popular, although he was not taken seriously as a musician until the 1970s. Joplin also wrote "Treemonisha," the first grand opera written by an African American in 1911. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.