Don’t miss your chance to see North Carolina’s original 1868 Constitution, the first to grant rights and privileges to newly freed persons. The document, on loan from the State Archives of North Carolina, will be on display inside our signature permanent exhibit, The Story of North Carolina, in the Hope, Fear, and Freedom gallery, until April 30, 2018 at 8:30 a.m.

To meet the demands of Congressional Reconstruction, North Carolina had to enact a new state constitution that gave voting rights to the freedmen. The state also had to accept the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution—outlawing slavery and defining blacks as American citizens.