Testimony before the Joint Committee on Reconstruction on Atrocities in the South against Blacks

Audience

As part of a Congressional investigation, the Joint Committee’s report and testimony aimed to persuade members of Congress to vote in favor of the Radical Republicans’ measures and thereby override President Johnson’s vetoes of the Freedmen’s Bureau and Civil Rights bills. Upon publication, the report and testimony created a public record justifying federal intervention in the South and amending the Constitution to guarantee citizenship rights to African Americans. Northern newspapers reported on the committee’s investigation and excerpted testimony, thereby broadening the documents’ scope beyond the walls of Congress. In the end, the black Virginians who testified were speaking directly to Congress and the nation.