Topic 1 Vocab

Reconstruction

the period during which the federal government controlled the states that had seceded from the Union during the Civil War

Radical Republicans

a group of Republican political leaders dedicated to imposing harsh conditions on the states that had seceded from the Union during the Civil War

Wade-Davis Bill

a law that required a majority of prewar voters in Confederate states to swear loyalty to the Union before restoration could begin

Freedmen's Bureau

a federal agency created to provide aid for enslaved people who were emancipated

Andrew Johnson

17th president; first to be impeached

Black Codes

laws that restricted African Americans rights and opportunities

Civil Rights Act of 1866

a law that established federal guarantees of civil rights for all citizens

Fourteenth Amendment

the constitutional amendment, ratified in July 1868, which guaranteed full citizenship status and rights to every person born in the United States, protected due process, and guaranteed equal protection of the law

Impeach

the act of bringing charges against a public official in order to determine whether he or she should be removed from office

Fifteenth Amendment

the constitutional amendment, ratified in February 1870, which guaranteed voting rights to all males regardless of race

Scalawag

a negative term for a southern white who supported the Republican Party after the Civil War

Carpetbagger

a negative term for Northerners who moved to the South after the Civil War

Segregation

a forced separation, often by race

Integration

the process of bringing together people of different races, religions, and social classes

Sharecropping

a system in which a farmer tends to a portion of a planters land in return for a share of the crop

Share-tenancy

much like sharecropping, except that the farmer chooses what crop to plant and buys the supplies

Tenant farming

a system in which a farmer paid rent to a landowner for use of the land

Ku Klux Klan

a secret society formed in the South with the intention of promoting white supremacy and denying African-Americans the exercise of their new rights

Enforcement Acts

1870 and 1871 laws, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Acts, that made it a federal offense to interfere with a citizens right to vote

Civil Rights Act of 1875

a law that banned discrimination in public facilities and transportation

Redeemer

a term for white southern Democrats who returned to political power after 1870

Rutherford B. Hayes

19th president; disputed victory decided by Compromise of 1877; end of Reconstruction

Compromise of 1877

an agreement by which Rutherford B. Hayes won the 1876 presidential election and in exchange agreed to remove all remaining federal troops from the South

Jim Crow laws

state laws passed throughout the South to enforce racial segregation of public facilities

Poll tax

a tax charged on voters

Literacy test

a reading and writing test formerly used in some southern states to prevent African Americans from voting

Grandfather clause

a law to disqualify African American voters by allowing the vote only to men whose fathers and grandfathers had voted before 1866 or 1867

Booker T. Washington

promoted vocational education; encouraged African-Americans to accept segregation and focus on improving themselves through education and economic opportunites

W.E.B Du Bois

The Souls of Black Folk; advocates for full civil rights, NAACP, educator and reformer

Ida B. Wells

worked to end lynching in the South; A Red Record