AP African American Studies Unit 3a

13th Amendment (1865)

Officially abolished slavery, or involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime.

14th Amendment (1868)

Defined the principle of birthright citizenship in the United States and granted equal protection to all people. It overturned the Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) Supreme Court decision and related state-level Black codes.

15th Amendment (1870)

Prohibited the federal government and each state from denying or abridging a citizen's right to vote "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude," thereby granting voting rights to Black men.

Reconstruction

the period after the Civil War in the United States when the southern states were reorganized and reintegrated into the Union

Freedman's Bureau, 1865

Set up to help freedmen and white refugees after Civil War. Provided food, clothing, medical care, and education. First to establish schools for blacks to learn to read as thousands of teachers from the north came south to help. Lasted from 1865-72.

Emancipation

the freeing of slaves

Jumping the Broom

A common part of the slave wedding ceremony, but wasn't considered legally binding in the United States

Family Reunions

Many African Americans established a tradition of family reunions, an outgrowth of their postemancipation search to connect with long-lost relatives and friends. Modern family reunions preserve and celebrate Black families' history, resilience, music, and culinary traditions.

Black Codes

Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War

Special Field Order 15

Order by General William T. Sherman in January 1865 to set aside abandoned land along the southern Atlantic coast for forty-acre grants to freedmen; rescinded by President Andrew Johnson later that year.

President Andrew Johnson

revoked Special Field Orders No. 15, and confiscated plantations were returned to their former owners or purchased by northern investors. As a result, African Americans were evicted or shifted into sharecropping contracts.

Sharecropping

A system used on southern farms after the Civil War in which farmers worked land owned by someone else in return for a small portion of the crops.

Crop Leins

farmers who began with little or no cash received food and supplies on credit, borrowing against their future harvest to acquire farming equipment and supplies. Their harvested crops often did not generate enough money to repay the debt, creating a vicious cycle of debt accumulation.

Convict Leasing

southern prisons profited by hiring out African American men imprisoned for debt, false arrest, or other minor charges to landowners and corporations. Prisoners worked without pay under conditions akin to those of slave labor.

Election of 1876/Compromise of 1877

Hayes promised to show concern for Southern interests and end Reconstruction in exchange for the Democrats accepting the fraudulent election results. He took Union troops out of the South.

Poll Tax

A requirement that citizens pay a tax in order to register to vote

Literacy Tests

Method used to deny African-Americans the vote in the South that tested a person's ability to read and write - they were done very unfairly so even though most African-Americans could read and write by the 1950's they still failed.

Grandfather Clause

A clause in registration laws allowing people who do not meet registration requirements to vote if they or their ancestors had voted before 1867.

Lynching

putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law

Ku Klux Klan

A secret society created by white southerners in 1866 that used terror and violence to keep African Americans from obtaining their civil rights.

Plessy v. Ferguson

, upheld a Louisiana law mandating segregated passenger coaches for railroad transportation. This doctrine of "separate but equal" became the legal basis for racial segregation in many facets of American society. The case legalized separate and unequal resources, facilities, and rights. It would take another Supreme Court ruling with Brown v. Board of Education, 1954, for "separate but equal" to begin to be dismantled.

Jim Crow

local and state-level statutes passed primarily (but not exclusively) in the South under the protection of the Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). Limited African American men's right to vote and enforced the racial segregation of hospitals, transportation, schools, and cemeteries for Black and white citizens

Nadir

African American Studies scholars refer to the period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Second World War as the _______________ or lowest point of American race relations. This period included some of the most flagrant public acts of racism (including lynching and mob violence) in United States history

Summer of 1919 (Red Summer)

a global flu pandemic, competition for jobs, and racial discrimination against Black First World War veterans all contributed to a rise in hate crimes across the country. More than 30 urban race riots occurred that summer.

Tulsa Race Massacre

Mobs destroyed more than 1,250 homes and businesses in Greenwood, also known as "Black Wall Street," which was one of the most affluent African American communities in the United States.

Greenwood

Black Wallstreet

Great Migration

movement of over 300,000 African American from the rural south into Northern cities between 1914 and 1920

Double Consciousness

the division of an individual's identity into two or more social realities - for W.E.B Du Bois

The Color Line

The division of black society and white society into two different and unequal worlds, supported by laws that segregated people and oppressed African Americans

W.E.B. Du Bois

He believed that African Americans should strive for full rights immediately; founded the NAACP

Booker T. Washington

African American progressive who supported segregation and demanded that African American better themselves individually to achieve equality.

Nannie Helen Burroughs

an educator, suffragist, church leader, and the daughter of enslaved people, helped establish the National Association of Colored Women (1896) and founded a school for women and girls in Washington, D.C. (1909).

"Lift Every Voice and Sing"

Black National Anthem

Anna Julia Cooper

This African American scholar was known for covering issues of race and gender in the America south in the late 1800s. She also argued men should not fear women attaining more education.

Madam C. J. Walker

Entrepreneur who was the first African American woman to become a millionaire, developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people

The African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME)

Founded in 1787 by Richard Allen; was the first black American denomination.

Black Press

Newspapers, magazines and periodicals aimed at a largely black audience.

Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company

One of the first black owned and operated banks in the US

Jubilee Singers

an African-American a cappella ensemble, consisting of students at Fisk University.

HBCUs

Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Second Morrill Act

stated that colleges could not discriminate against African Americans unless there was an African American college nearby this second act provided federal support to states to create separate but equal colleges for African Americans

Fisk University

historically black college started by the Freedmen's Bureau located in Nashville, TN

Tuskeegee Institute

the Alabama school started by Booker T. Washington to provide education for freed slaves so they could get better jobs and make more money

BGLOs

Black Greek Letter Organizations

Lewis Latimer

African-American inventor who played a key role in improving practical electrical lighting

George Washington Carver

African American farmer and food scientist. His research improved farming in the South by developing new products using peanuts.

Separate but Equal

Principle upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of public facilities was legal.

Poem "If We Must Die"

Poem by Claude McKay is written as a call to unity for the Block community to rise and fight against their oppressors.

Claude McKay

A poet who was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance movement and wrote the poem "If We Must Die" after the Chicago riot of 1919.