african american history

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

An act that decreed runaway slaves were to be hunted down and returned to their masters in chains.

Fort Monroe

Union-held outpost in Confederate Virginia where three runaway slaves sought refuge in 1861.

Benjamin Butler

Union Major General who refused to return fugitive slaves to the Confederacy and invented the status of 'contraband of war'.

Contraband Act

Slaves who reached Union lines. The act says that the officer is required to retain you, put you to work, and practice you free

Mary Peake

A visionary teacher who taught slaves in secret before the war and later openly at Hampton University.

Abraham Lincoln

President of the United States who faced the dilemma of runaway slaves and the question of slavery during the Civil War.

Emancipation Proclamation

Issued on January 1, 1863, it declared that any slave within a rebellious state shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

Robert Smalls

Escaped enslaved person who joined the Union Army and later became an elected official from South Carolina to the US House of Representatives.

Refugee

Recognizes the humanity of people and suggests they should be defended or protected by a government.

Massachusetts 54th

Massachusetts regiment of combined union of people getting used to each other, but still then after the Emancipation Proclamation is issued, issued are able to join as a regiment.

William Carney

Received a Congressional Medal of Honor after the Civil War.

Susie King Taylor

Born a slave and gained some freedom as an early age. She was a person who was illegally taught to read and write by someone like Mary Peake. First black army nurse in American history

Susie King Taylor

First black army nurse in American history and who recounted what life was like for her and the black regiments during the war. Right? So a piece of literature, a written primary source about that experience.

James Horton

A business owner and a sail maker for ships. Her family was involved in the abolitionist movement.

Charlotte Fordy

Compiled a report and sent it to Abraham Lincoln to establish nationwide and official public school system in The United States.

Yeoman Farmers

Poor farmers in the South who, after the Civil War, began working together with black people, showing they were not straight-up ardent bigots.

Confiscated land

Land is money. Land is power

Decentralized government style

Each state had more rights or more authority than the Confederacy’s federal government

Freedmen's Bureau

Created by the war department under the union to protect newly freed enslaved people.

40 Acres and a Mule

An idea that resulted in land being confiscated and divided into forty acre parcels with a mule being tossed-in to work the land.

Forty Acres and a Mule

The production company created by Spike Lee to remember people.

Andrew Johnson

Vice president of Abraham Lincoln (became president after Lincoln was assassinated), from Virginia, and a southern sympathizer.

Presidential Reconstruction period

Salacious, President.

1896 with the Plessy versus Ferguson decision

The official hardcore ending of Reconstruction.

Fifteenth Amendmen

Guarantees the constitutional right of all men to vote.

Separate sphere ideology

Recognizes black women as mothers who then were in charge of their children, their child rearing, and their home, inside the home, their domestic environment, home.

Vagrancy Statutes

Set that a person has to have a yearly labor contract or they are considered a vagrant, a vagabond, a lawyer.

Emancipation

The simple reality of people that they had once owned now were entitled to the same fruits of their labor.

Pig laws

Laws passed in Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, enhancing penalties for what had been previously misdemeanor offenses to now felony offenses.

Margaret Garner

An enslaved woman who lived on a farm and escaped with her family.

Ohio River

The barrier between slave Kentucky and free states, crossed by Margaret Garner and her family.

Unthinkable Act

Margaret Garner killed her children rather than return them to slavery.

Margaret Garner's Quote

"I did the best that a mother could do."

Abolitionist View

Margaret's actions show violence seemed the only way to end slavery.

Southern White View

Margaret's actions shows that black people were subhuman and in need of their master's paternal care.

Social Death

Violence seemed the only way to end it, and much more violence was coming.

Impact of Enslaved People's Actions

Actions of enslaved black people shaping laws, leading to ideological campaigns reinforcing the necessity of slavery.

Resistance to Slavery

Enslaved people do not accept their position. Nat Turner shakes up everything.

South's Focus

Focus on maintaining the system through breaking up enslaved families and control by a patriarch.

Abroad Marriages

Practice of enslaved relatives maintaining contact and relationships across plantations.

Abolitionist Movement

Advocating for abolition, aligning with sympathetic whites, and amplifying black voices.

Frederick Douglass's Early life

Raised by his grandmother, Betsy Bailey, and sold to work on a plantation 12 miles away.

Frederick Douglass's Activism

Worked on docks, joined the black church, and spoke out against slavery after escaping.

Nantucket Speech

Spoke at an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, advocating for the equality of black people.

Slave Breaker

Profession of physically breaking enslaved men and women into obedience and compliance.

Liberation Requirements

Enslaved people need mental liberation through education and physical active agency to eliminate slavery.

Delaney

Believed in a pan-African unity.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

A new organization created by students with Ella Baker as their mentor and founding leader.

Ella Baker's Role

Challenges sexism in the civil rights movement and advocates for women to have leadership positions.

Ruby Bridges

A six-year-old girl who was escorted to an all-white elementary school in New Orleans by federal marshals.

Brown v. Board of Education

Landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional.

Charlene Hunter and Hamilton Holmes

Desegregated the University of Georgia in 1961.

Diane Nash and John Lewis

Led a campaign in Nashville to desegregate the city's lunch counters.

Nonviolent Passive Resistance

A tactic where resistance was met with brutality, leading to Nashville desegregating its lunch counters.

SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)

Organization founded with Ella Baker's help that operated at the "shot truth level."

Ella Baker

Argued that the ultimate source of power is at the level where the people are.

Diane Nash

Revised the Freedom Rides when they were interrupted.

James Farmer

Helped found CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and launched the Freedom Rides.

A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin

Planned the 1941 March on Washington for jobs.

Bob Moses

Launched Freedom Summer in 1964 to organize voting registration in Mississippi.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Testified at the Democratic National Convention about voting suppression and economic coercion.

CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

Founded in the 1940s in the North and West and launched the Freedom Rides.

Berry Gordy

Founded Motown Records, a successful black-owned business.

Malcolm X

Was Black Americans prosecuting attorney, prosecuting white Americans for crimes against the Black community.

James Meredith

Civil rights activist who was shot by a sniper during the March Against Fear.

Stokely Carmichael

SNCC member who transitioned into the Black Panther Party and was the face of the chant "Black Power."

Southern Civil Rights Movement

Used mass arrests as a strategy to fill the jails, creating a new training and recruiting ground.

Rosa Parks

Civil rights activist who moved to Detroit and helped get John Conyers elected.

JFK

Began writing the Civil Rights Act of '64.

Medgar Evers

NAACP organizer who was assassinated in his driveway in Mississippi.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Delivered the prototype of his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Detroit march.

Diane Nash and Ella Baker

Women who brought attention to Women's roles in the movement

Inner City Blues

An album by Marvin Gaye capturing various social concerns and pushing them into pop culture radio.

Jesse Owens

Son of sharecroppers who won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, challenging white supremacy.

Muhammad Ali's Inspiration

Inspired by seeing Jesse Owens' post-Olympics treatment, which motivated him to become outspoken on racial justice.

Jackie Robinson

Athlete from a family in the Great Migration who faced segregation in the army and later integrated Major League Baseball.

Branch Rickey

Executive who sought a baseball player with the right temperament to integrate Major League Baseball without causing further rejection of black players.

Jackie Robinson's Contract

Agreed not to participate in civil rights protests or self-defense in order to integrate Major League Baseball.

Housing Discrimination Against Jackie Robinson

Despite his fame and salary, Robinson was refused housing in Brooklyn due to redlining and racial covenants.

Desegregation vs. Integration

Desegregation means black people have access; integration means fluid representation and inclusivity.

Executive Order 9981

Desegregated the armed forces one year after Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball.

Charles Hamilton Houston

Revamped Howard Law School and used multiple cases to build the argument for Brown v. Board of Education.

Brown v. Board of Education Argument

Argued that separate schools were a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment if they were funded unequally.

Thurgood Marshall

Pupil of Charles Hamilton Houston who argued the Brown v. Board of Education case before the Supreme Court.

Constance Baker Motley

Argued 10 cases in the United States Supreme Court, representing James Meredith in integrating Ole Miss.

WDIA Radio Station

White-owned Memphis radio station that switched to all-black programming in 1949, becoming an accidental agent of social change.

Paul Robeson

Condemned the United States government for promoting democracy abroad while neglecting the rights of its African American citizens at home.

Brown v. Board Implementation

The Supreme Court decision stated desegregation should occur 'with all deliberate speed,' leading to slow and varied implementation.

Doll Experiment

Conducted by Kenneth and Mamie Clark, revealed the psychological impact of segregation on black children.

Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission

Off-the-books state-funded organization that worked with white citizens councils to surveil activists.

Emmett Till

14-year-old boy whose murder in Mississippi galvanized the black community and highlighted racial injustice.

Magnolia Curtain

Term used to describe Mississippi due to its extreme resistance to desegregation and racial equality.

Rosa Parks

Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, is credited with launching the modern civil rights movement.

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Lasted over a year and demanded desegregated seating and job opportunities for black employees at the bus company.

Chain Gangs

Groups of prisoners leased out for labor, often working on public projects like road construction, that became prevalent in the American South.

New Negro

Refers to the emergence of a new identity and assertiveness among African Americans, particularly in the North, during the early 20th century, marked by cultural and intellectual achievements.

Respectability Politics

The belief that if the black community behaved in a certain matter, assimilationist in their hairstyles and dressing a certain way, then they could challenge the stereotypes in society.

Double V Campaign

A campaign during World War II that called for both victory against the Axis powers abroad and victory against racial discrimination at home.

Isaac Woodard Incident

The brutal blinding of a black army sergeant by police in 1946, highlighting the discrimination and violence faced by black veterans returning home.

Redlining

Discriminatory practice of denying services (e.g., loans, insurance) to residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity.