On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln was shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth while attending a play at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Lincoln’s assassination, just days after the end of the Civil War, shocked the nation. For African Americans, his death was deeply felt—Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation and symbolized hope for freedom and reconstruction. His assassination also marked a turning point that would complicate the fight for Black rights during the turbulent Reconstruction era that followed.
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