U.S. Grant

President of the United States from 1869 to 1877, Ulysses S. Grant attended the opening ceremonies of the Centennial Exposition. Grant’s administration enforced Congressional Reconstruction in the postbellum South. Ironically for Grant, the 1876 Centennial was the last hurrah for Reconstruction. The limited representation of black people at the Centennial Exposition and the stereotypic treatment accorded black people at the fair were bellwethers of post-Reconstruction racial politics South and North.