 Numerous African-Americans were elected to local office through the 1880s, and in the 1890s in some states, biracial coalitions of populists and Republicans briefly held control of state legislatures.In the last decade of the 19th century, Southern states elected five black U.S. congressmen before disenfranchising state constitutions were passed throughout the former Confederacy.The interpretation of Reconstruction has been a topic of controversy.