• M. Athalie Range was the first black since Reconstruction and the first woman to head a state agency in Florida?
• James Wayne "Jim" Tucker of suburban New Orleans will in 2008 become the first Republican Speaker of the Louisiana House of Representatives since Reconstruction?
• Haley Barbour became only the second Republican Governor of Mississippi since Reconstruction after winning the 2003 Mississippi gubernatorial election?

Facts on topics related to Reconstruction

Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

• in his dissenting opinion in the case of Taylor v. Beckham, U.S. Supreme Court justice John Marshall Harlan wrote that the right to hold elected offices should be considered part of the definition of "liberty" and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment?