Unites States History A 2:12 Amendments and Freedmen’s Bureau

13th Amendment

Abolished slavery throughout the United States.

14th Amendment

Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all born or naturalized in the U.S.

15th Amendment

Guaranteed voting rights regardless of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Sharecropping

A labor system where freedmen farmed land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crop, often trapping them in poverty.

Hiram Revels

First African American U.S. Senator, elected from Mississippi during Reconstruction.

Union League

Political organization that supported African American civil rights and mobilized Black voters in the South.

Sojourner Truth

Former slave who advocated for land grants for freedmen and equal rights for women and African Americans.

Booker T. Washington

Advocate for African American education; helped found schools supported by Freedmen’s Bureau.

“40 Acres and a Mule”

Unfulfilled promise of land redistribution to formerly enslaved people.

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the South after Reconstruction ended.

Compromise of 1877

Agreement that ended Reconstruction by withdrawing federal troops from the South, allowing Democrats to regain control.

Nadir of Race Relations

Period from 1890–1920 marked by increased violence, segregation, and disenfranchisement of African Americans.

Exodusters

African Americans who migrated from the South to Kansas and other western states after Reconstruction to escape racism.