On April 9, 1866, the U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which declared that all persons born in the United States were citizens, regardless of race, and granted them equal rights in the courts and in property transactions. The act was passed over President Andrew Johnson's veto and was the first federal legislation to define citizenship and affirm the rights of African Americans. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 laid the groundwork for the Fourteenth Amendment and was a vital step in the legal dismantling of the Black Codes that had been enacted in the South after the Civil War.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866 has been referenced in African American literature as a foundational moment in the struggle for legal equality. The act appears in the writings of Reconstruction-era authors and has been cited in the poetry of the 20th-century civil rights movement. The act's passage is often invoked in historical fiction and drama to highlight the tension between legislation and social reality in the postbellum South.