Reconstruction and American Society Lecture Notes

Vocabulary flashcards reviewing key concepts, events, legislation, and figures from the Reconstruction era and early American racial politics based on lecture notes.

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West

Shows that presented the American West as a place where American homes and communities were threatened by outsiders, especially Native Americans.

The idea of home

A powerful metaphor for American stability and society, representing security, family, a good job, and protection from external threats.

John Wilkes Booth

A Confederate sympathizer who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln and was later found and killed after escaping.

Andrew Johnson

The Southern Unionist President from a poor background who took office after Lincoln's assassination, opposed wealthy plantation elites, but did not focus on racial equality.

Reconstruction (1865–1877)

The period after the Civil War focused on rebuilding the South, reintegrating former Confederate states into the Union, and determining the legal and political rights of formerly enslaved people.

“Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner”

An image representing the ideal goal of creating a diverse United States where people of different races, economic classes, and backgrounds could participate together.

Freedmen’s Bureau

A federal agency created to help formerly enslaved African Americans transition from slavery to freedom by focusing on education, health, land, and legal assistance.

Black Codes

Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War designed to restrict African American freedom, maintain white control over Black labor, and force African Americans into labor systems.

Sharecropping

An economic system where a landowner provided land and a farmer worked it in exchange for a portion of the crop, which frequently trapped African American farmers in cycles of debt.

Radical Republicans

Members of Congress who believed Reconstruction needed to protect African American rights, provide Black political power, and transform Southern society.

Civil Rights Act of 1866

Legislation passed by Congress to establish legal rights for African Americans, which became law after Congress successfully overturned President Andrew Johnson's veto.

Memphis and New Orleans Massacres (1866)

Racial violence in 1866 targeting African Americans and Republicans that convinced Congress that civil rights required constitutional protection.

14th Amendment

Constitutional amendment establishing citizenship for anyone born or naturalized in the U.S. and guaranteeing equal protection under the law and due process.

15th Amendment

Constitutional amendment that prohibited denying the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude, though it excluded women.

Enforcement Acts

Federal legislation passed to fight political violence and the KKK, allowing President Grant to use the military, arrest members of violent groups, and suspend habeas corpus.

Colfax Massacre

An attack by white Democrats on African Americans gathered at a Louisiana courthouse, which led to a Supreme Court ruling that limited federal power to prosecute private individuals under the 14th Amendment.

Ida B. Wells

A journalist and anti-lynching activist who investigated lynchings, challenged false claims used to justify racial violence, and exposed how lynching was used to maintain white power.

Wilmington Massacre (1898)

An attack in North Carolina where white supremacists, including the Red Shirts, killed Black citizens and violently overthrow the elected local government.

Duluth Lynching (1920)

The lynching of Black men in Minnesota based on false accusations, demonstrating that extrajudicial racial violence occurred outside the American South.

The Birth of a Nation

An influential racist film that spread the Lost Cause narrative, portrayed Reconstruction as a failure, depicted African Americans as dangerous, and praised the KKK as heroes.