An abolitionist was someone who advocated the ending of the enslavement of Black people in the United States prior to the Civil War. Both Black and white Americans, mostly in the northern US, were abolitionists, including the prominent Black orator and freedman, Frederick Douglass.

This unofficial Congressional compromise ended Reconstruction in the South by allowing federal troops to be removed from the former Confederate states. This action eliminated protection for Black southerners, leading to the rise of the Jim Crow South. As a result, Black people were disfranchised, and the domestic terrorist and white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), intimidated, terrorized, and murdered Black Americans.

Emancipation refers to the liberation of enslaved Black people in the United States. Slave owners could choose to emancipate enslaved peoples, but emancipation technically and legally occurred through The Emancipation Proclamation, which President Abraham Lincoln issued on January 1, 1863. The proclamation, however, only applied to rebellious southern states and did not affect slavery in border states that were loyal to the Union or southern areas over which the Union had reassumed control. Slavery was officially abolished with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that enslavement will not exist except as punishment for convicted criminals.