The years following the conclusion of the Civil War and extending to the initial rumblings of what would come to be known as the Harlem Renaissance, roughly 1865–1910, can perhaps be characterized by the Dickensian binary opposition “The best of times, the worst of times.” The euphoria and celebratory mood associated with the end of the Civil War was soon interrupted by the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but was recaptured, though not without continued vigilance and hard work, by the subsequent ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution in 1865, 1868, and 1870 respectively. In addition, the Freedmen's Bureau, organized immediately following the conclusion of the war, was charged with attending to the immediate needs of the newly freed slaves, many of whom did not have the wherewithal to supply themselves with the basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter. The Bureau met with some success, but the organization under the leadership of former Union Army General O. O. Howard had its share of detractors who prevented it from completing its mission.

Indeed, freedom and its exercise by millions of African Americans who had been previously enslaved took on many different forms, from presiding over confiscated lands of former slaveholders, and free movement to other geographical locations, to freely participating in constitutional conventions and the electoral process that enabled a number of African Americans to hold public offices.