Wikimedia Commons/Miscellaneous Items in High Demand, PPOC, Library of Congress
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The first test for Reconstruction in the South Carolina Sea Islands
The Port Royal Experiment began in 1861 when Union forces took South Carolina’s Sea Islands, freeing 10,000 enslaved people overnight. As white planters fled, these newly freed people did something remarkable.
They built America’s first self-governing Black town at Mitchelville, complete with elected officials and schools. They worked cotton fields for wages, not whips…