African American History Study Guide: Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement

Practice flashcards covering eras, landmark legal cases, leaders, and pivotal events in African American history from Reconstruction through the 1950s.

What did the 13th Amendment accomplish when it was ratified in 1865?

It abolished slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, except as punishment for a crime.

What protections were granted under the 14th Amendment in 1868?

It granted citizenship to people born in the United States and guaranteed equal protection under the law.

What voting right was protected by the 15th Amendment in 1870?

It prohibited denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

How did Presidential Reconstruction differ from Congressional Reconstruction between 1865 and 1877?

Presidential Reconstruction (associated with Andrew Johnson) was lenient toward former Confederate states, whereas Congressional Reconstruction demanded stronger protections and political rights for African Americans.

What was the concept and outcome of '40 Acres and a Mule' in 1865?

It was the proposal to redistribute confiscated Confederate land to formerly enslaved families for economic independence, but most never received it, leading many to become sharecroppers or tenant farmers.

What was the role of the Freedmen's Bureau between 1865 and 1872?

It was a federal agency established to assist formerly enslaved people and poor Southerners by helping establish schools, assisting with labor contracts, reuniting families, and providing legal protection.

What were the Southern Black Codes enacted in 1865–1866?

Laws passed by Southern states to restrict the freedom, employment, and movement of formerly enslaved people in order to maintain white control over Black labor and society.

What compromise ended Reconstruction in 1877, and what was its impact on Black Americans?

The Compromise of 1877 resulted in the withdrawal of federal troops from the South, allowing Southern white Democrats to regain control and ushering in the Nadir of American race relations.

How did the sharecropping system affect Black Americans following emancipation?

Black farmers worked land owned by someone else for a portion of the crops, but unfair contracts and debt trapped families in poverty and economic dependence.

What was the convict lease system in the post-Reconstruction South?

A system where states leased disproportionately arrested Black prisoners to private companies for extremely dangerous forced labor, resembling slavery and generating revenue for states.

What was whitecapping in the late 19th and early 20th centuries?

Organized white violence and intimidation directed against Black farmers who tried to own land or achieve economic independence.

Whose 1892 lynching in Memphis served as a major catalyst for Ida B. Wells's anti-lynching activism?

Thomas Moss, Calvin McDowell, and Will Stewart, three Black men connected to the successful People's Grocery whose economic success created tension with white competitors.

What core strategy for Black advancement was promoted by Booker T. Washington?

Vocational education, economic self-help, and gradual economic advancement, centered at the Tuskegee Institute (founded in 1881).

How did W. E. B. Du Bois's civil rights philosophy contrast with Booker T. Washington's?

Du Bois rejected gradualism and demanded immediate civil and political equality, voting rights, and equal education.

What did the Supreme Court rule in Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857)?

It ruled that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens and that Congress lacked authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.

What legal doctrine was established by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)?

The doctrine of 'separate but equal,' which constitutionally legitimized racial segregation and allowed Jim Crow laws to expand.

What voting restrictions were used by Southern states to disenfranchise Black voters during Jim Crow?

All-white primaries, discriminatory literacy tests, and grandfather clauses that exempted poor white voters whose ancestors could vote prior to the Civil War.

What was the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), founded in 1896?

A national organization uniting Black women's clubs to combat racism and sexism while advancing education, poverty relief, and community improvement.

What was the Niagara Movement, founded in 1905?

A civil rights organization led by W. E. B. Du Bois and William Monroe Trotter that opposed gradualism, demanded immediate civil and political rights, and became a direct predecessor of the NAACP.

When was the NAACP founded, and what methods did it use to fight racial discrimination?

Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People used legal challenges, activism, journalism, and political pressure to challenge segregation, disenfranchisement, and lynching.

What was the significance of Robert Abbott and the Chicago Defender?

Robert Abbott founded the Chicago Defender in 1905, using the newspaper to report on Southern racial violence and actively encourage the Great Migration to Northern cities.

What was the Great Migration (c. 1915–1940)?

The mass relocation of millions of Black Southerners to Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities to escape Jim Crow violence and seek industrial jobs, better education, and political opportunities.

What was the real estate tactic known as blockbusting?

Agents induced white homeowners to sell cheaply by stoking fears that incoming Black families would lower property values, then resold those homes at higher prices to Black families.

What was the Red Summer of 1919?

A period of widespread postwar racial violence and attacks against Black communities across numerous U.S. cities, prompting increased Black armed self-defense.

What was the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), founded in 1914?

A mass Black nationalist organization founded by Marcus Garvey that promoted Black pride, economic independence, and African self-determination.

What was the Black Star Line?

A shipping company founded in 1919 by Marcus Garvey and the UNIA to serve as a symbol and enterprise of Black economic nationalism.

How were the Mammy, Sambo, and Zip Coon caricatures used in American culture?

They were racist stereotypes that justified white supremacy by portraying Black women as loyal domestic servants (Mammy) and Black men as lazy, childlike (Sambo), or foolishly imitating white society (Zip Coon).

What was the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s and 1930s?

A cultural explosion of Black literature, music, visual art, and intellectual thought centered in Harlem that celebrated Black identity and culture.

How did A. Philip Randolph pressure President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941?

He threatened a massive March on Washington to protest discrimination in defense industries, leading FDR to issue Executive Order 8802 and establish the Fair Employment Practice Committee.

What was the Scottsboro Boys case of 1931?

The wrongful arrest and death sentencing of nine Black teenagers in Alabama falsely accused of raping two white women, which became an international symbol of legal injustice.

How did Eleanor Roosevelt demonstrate support for civil rights during the New Deal era?

She acted as a White House ally for civil rights and resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution when singer Marian Anderson was barred from performing at Constitution Hall.

What legal role did Charles Hamilton Houston play in dismantling Jim Crow?

He developed the NAACP's legal strategy to attack segregation through the courts, mentored lawyers including Thurgood Marshall, and laid the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education.

What was the significance of Murray v. Maryland (1936)?

Donald Gaines Murray gained admission to the University of Maryland Law School because the state lacked an equal law school for Black students, proving separate facilities were unequal.

What did the Supreme Court rule in Brown v. Board of Education (1954)?

It declared that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, striking down the legal foundation of 'separate but equal' in public education.

What did the Supreme Court decide in Smith v. Allwright (1944)?

It ruled that all-white primary elections in Texas were unconstitutional, protecting Black voting rights from party-level exclusion.

What did Morgan v. Virginia (1946) decide, and what action did it inspire in 1947?

It struck down segregation on interstate bus travel, inspiring CORE activists to conduct the 1947 Journey of Reconciliation to test enforcement.

Who was Claudette Colvin, and what was her role in the Montgomery bus integration effort?

A fifteen-year-old Black student who refused to give up her bus seat in Montgomery months before Rosa Parks and later served as a plaintiff in Browder v. Gayle.

What triggered the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956), and what was its result?

Triggered by Rosa Parks's arrest, the year-long boycott resulted in a Supreme Court ruling striking down bus segregation and elevated Martin Luther King Jr. to national prominence.

Why was the 1955 murder of Emmett Till a turning point in the civil rights movement?

The brutal lynching of the fourteen-year-old Chicago boy in Mississippi and his mother Mamie Till-Mobley's open-casket funeral exposed the raw violence of Southern racism to national and international audiences.

Who was Booker T. Washington what was his goal?

An influential African American educator and leader from 1856-1931 who advocated for vocational training and economic self-reliance for Black people, aiming for gradual social integration and improvement. Founded the Tuskegee Institute in 1881 and delivered the Atlanta Compromise Speech in 1895

Effect on Black Americans: Expanded educational opportunities; promoted Black entrepreneurship and skilled labor; his gradual approach to civil rights was influential but controversial.

Who was W.E.B Du Bois and what were his contributions?

W.E.B. Du Bois was a prominent African American sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist born in 1868. He co-founded the NAACP in 1909, advocated for political and civil rights through the advancement of education, and was a critic of Booker T. Washington's approach, promoting immediate equality and higher education for Black Americans. Also helped establish the Niagara Movement

Effect of Black Americans: Challenged gradualism; helped establish the Niagara Movement and NAACP; became one of the most influential Black intellectuals of the 20th century.

Who was Ida B. Wells and her contributions?

She was a journalist, activist, and civil rights leader who investigated lynching and challenged the claim that lynching was justified because of Black criminality. Started her campaign in 1892

Effect on Black Americans: Exposed the reality of racial terror; became one of the nation’s most important anti-lynching activists; used journalism to challenge white supremacy.

Who was Robert Abbott and his contributions?

Founder of the Chicago Defender newspaper in 1905. Abbott wanted to provide Black Americans with news and information that mainstream white newspapers often ignored.

Effect on Black Americans: Encouraged Black migration out of the South; reported racial violence and discrimination; became one of the most influential Black newspaper publishers.

Who was Marcus Garvey and his contributions

A Jamaican-born Black nationalist and Pan-Africanist leader. Garvey promoted Black pride, economic independence, African self-determination, and global Black unity from the 1910s-1920s.

Effect on Black Americans: Inspired millions of Black people; encouraged Black-owned businesses; promoted Black political consciousness; became one of the most influential Black nationalist leaders.

Who was A. Philip Randolph and his contributions?

A labor leader and civil rights activist. He fought for better working conditions and racial equality, especially for Black railroad workers. Threatened Roosevelt w/ the 1941 March on Washington to protest racial discrimination and the exclusion of African Americans from well-paying jobs in the national defense industry and federal employment.

Effect on Black Americans: Helped organize Black workers; demonstrated the connection between labor rights and civil rights; later became extremely important in the WWII-era fight against employment discrimination.

Who was Charles Hamilton Houston