We the Undersigned: Black South Carolinians Petition for Equal Rights, 1865
Completed Pages: 112
Registered Contributors: 124
Launched March 29, 2023 and completed April 5, 2023.
About This Campaign
Months after the Civil War ended in 1865, over 3,000 African American residents of South Carolina submitted a petition of fifty-four feet in length urging the U.S. Congress to ensure that voting rights be secured to them in the new South Carolina state constitution. These South Carolinians were among many African Americans who submitted petitions to government officials to advocate for equal treatment under the law in the wake of emancipation. Who were the African American South Carolinians who signed this petition? How did this petition connect them?
This campaign to transcribe the roughly 3,740 petition signatures aims to make the names of individual petitioners more discoverable and to encourage further research that will shed light on the genealogical, community study, and historical contexts of this remarkable but largely unknown document.
Instructions: Transcribe columns in the order you would read them in a single list, don't preserve the two-column formatting of the original.
This campaign to transcribe the roughly 3,740 petition signatures aims to make the names of individual petitioners more discoverable and to encourage further research that will shed light on the genealogical, community study, and historical contexts of this remarkable but largely unknown document.
Instructions: Transcribe columns in the order you would read them in a single list, don't preserve the two-column formatting of the original.