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On August 1, 1867, Blacks voted for the first time in a US state election in the South (Tennessee).

"While the process of Reconstruction continued until 1868 for many of the rebel states, Tennessee was readmitted into the United States in 1866. Thus, Tennessee was the only one of the Confederate states not affected by the highly contentious sections of the Reconstruction Acts, which placed the states under military authority. As a consequence, the state would be one of the first to fully understand how voting would change with the inclusion of a black voter population. The August election of 1867 to select a governor marked the first time in Tennessee's history that blacks would be allowed to vote. More significantly, however, this was the first time since emancipation that Southern blacks would vote at all.

The United States as a whole appears to have understood the magnitude of this situation. On the day of the election, the National Intelligencer published a lengthy article on the status of Tennessee's election. According to the newspaper, 56,022 whites were registered to vote, while 37,216 blacks had registered. The blacks helped to keep the incumbent Democratic governor, Emerson Ethridge, in place while also voting on candidates for Congress and the state legislature.

Understandably, military guard had been posted in Tennessee to ensure that the election ran smoothly. This precautionary act was not needed for this particular election, but only a few months later, during an election in Nashville, it could be seen why these actions had been taken. On October 1, Colonel J.Albert Smith of an Indiana regiment of the United States Army shot at Major I.D. Walker, another member of the same regiment, on the basis of negative campaigning where Walker criticized Smith. Although both parties involved were white, military men, this incident pointed to the complex nature of elections in the Reconstruction era."