In March 1865 the Freedman's Bureau was created by Congress, consolidating all various agencies working with southern blacks.  In Wilmington, the Freedman's Bureau began operation in July 1865, with headquarters in the basement of the Bellamy Mansion.

In 1866 the Civil Rights Act passed both houses of Congress and conferred citizenship on 'all persons born in the United States...' and in 1875 the Civil Rights Bill guaranteed 'equality of all men before the law.'

Wilmington struggled to consolidate power by each side, the old establishment Wilmington and the up and coming new Republican Party.

In 1898 the unthinkable happened when whites banded together and issued a set of demands that resulted in the unseating of elected local government, the burning of a local black newspaper, and several deaths.

White Supremacy Clubs and the Ku Klux Klan sprang up, Jim Crow laws were passed, and the place of blacks was forcibly defined by segregation.

The struggle for recognition and equality was to smolder for only a few years before erupting again on a national scale that was to absolutely guarantee  equality before the law in the land.

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