The first president to play a role was Abraham Lincoln, he was the sixteenth president of the United States. Lincoln first let African Americans into the Union Army to fight in the Civil War, and after the war ended, he freed the slaves with the Thirteenth Amendment and its Emancipation Proclamation. After Lincoln, Andrew Johnson didn't really play a big role in helping African Americans do good for African Americans because of the black codes he established and his negative attitude toward the Freedmen's Bureau. Ulysses S. Grant succeeded Johnson and helped African Americans by arresting Klan members, but he didn't last long because some people were tired of giving civil rights to African Americans, so Rutherford B . Hayes took office. Hayes imposed Jim Crow laws, which did not bring America any closer to equality for African Americans. These presidents held greater power during the Civil War and Reconstruction period and they still did not come any closer to equality for Africans.