NARRATOR
In the summer of 1868, Tunis Campbell entered the Georgia state legislature in Atlanta. With him came thirty-one other black members of the Republican party. The work of re-making the southern states had begun.

FONER
Suddenly you get hundreds of men elected to every office from member of Congress, the Senate, House of Representatives, member of state legislature, state positions, down to sheriff, justice of the peace, school board official, you name it.

NARRATOR
For Democrats, who had bitterly resisted the Republican Reconstruction plan, the very idea of blacks in political office was an aberration. "The Negro is unfit to rule the State," The Atlanta Constitution declared. "The Democratic party will protect him in every civil right. It is unwilling, however, to make him Congressman, Governor, and Judge. It will not consent to degrade its own race by elevating an inferior above it." In the Georgia legislature, blacks were outnumbered four to one. As soon as Tunis Campbell took his seat, he came under attack from whites on both sides of the aisle.

WALKER
What you have here is a very volatile moment in which alliances politically are shifting very rapidly, and from one day to the next, you don't know really what's going to happen.

NARRATOR
The few white Republicans who did support black legislators were branded as traitors to their race. Blacks "should quit dabbling in politics," argued one newspaper, "and go to work...to earn an honest subsistence." Most whites in the legislature maintained that the new Georgia Constitution only gave blacks the right to vote, not the right to hold office.

DUNCAN
The Georgia constitution did not specifically allow office holding by black Americans. Of course it didn't specifically authorize office holding by white Americans either...

NARRATOR
One legislator, Henry McNeal Turner, expressed the outrage of his black colleagues. He was entitled to his seat, he said and would not cringe or beg for it. Tunis Campbell also refused to be intimidated.

V/O Tunis Campbell
On behalf of nearly five hundred thousand loyal citizens of this State, we do enter our solemn protest against the illegal, unconstitutional and oppressive action of this body.

NARRATOR
White legislators made it clear that Campbell was not welcome in the chamber.

DUNCAN
Many of them put their hands on the butts of the pistols of the guns they wore into the chamber. They shuffled their feet. They banged on the desk. They talked about the "Congo senator's insolent harangue."

NARRATOR
Just two months after it had first convened, the Georgia legislature voted to expel its black members. "You may drive us out," Turner warned, "but you will light a torch never to be put out."

NARRATOR
Tunis Campbell immediately left for Washington to ask the federal government to intercede in Georgia. The capital was in the midst of the first presidential election since the Civil War. The campaign of 1868 came down to a battle over Reconstruction. The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour and Frank Blair. Their views were shared by many in populous northern states like New York and New Jersey.

BLIGHT
The Democratic Party ran arguably the most openly white supremacist election campaign in American history. They painted the Republicans as, quote, "nigger lovers."

FONER
The Democrats absolutely repudiate Reconstruction. They basically say, "If we get in, forget about Reconstruction. We're going to repeal all this and put the South back under the control of-of white leaders."

NARRATOR
Though the views of the Democrats had wide support, many voters gravitated to the Republican candidate, Ulysses S. Grant. They found comfort in the Union general who had won the war. Grant's slogan was "Let us have peace." The general understood that the northern heart cared deeply about reuniting North and South. He promised to support Reconstruction but wrap it up quickly.

BLIGHT
There was a kind of new politics of reconciliation, a need to bring South and North together because it would be good for the economy; it would be good for the federal government; it would be good for expansion and growth.

NARRATOR
The North was booming. To many voters there, Grant represented a chance to solve the southern problem; they could then turn their attention to the future. In the South, blacks saw him differently. Almost half a million turned out to vote for Grant because they believed that at last they would have an ally in the White House. The new President seemed to prove them right. Grant and Congress ordered the Georgia governor to readmit the expelled legislators. Tunis Campbell and his thirty-one black colleagues took back their seats.