Unit 3 AP AAS

Reconstruction Amendments Impacts on African Americans - defined standards of citizenship with the federal government reintegrating the former Confederate states and creating and protecting the rights of free and formerly enslaved African Americans by granting them citizenship, equal rights, and political representation

14th Amendment - defined the principle of birthright citizenship and granted equal protection to all people. Overturned the decision of Dred Scott v. Sanford (doesn’t specifically mention African Americans, only states anyone born in the US is a citizen)

15th Amendment - prohibited the federal government and states from denying a citizen’s right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (granted Black men the right to vote)

Freedmen’s Bureau - provided aid to African Americans during Reconstruction. Helped them transition to freedom by providing assistance with basic needs

After emancipation, African Americans located relatives separated by domestic slave trade by using newspapers and word of mouth

Convict Leasing - Southern prisons hired African American men imprisoned for false arrest or other minor charges. They would be worked without pay under conditions very similar to slave labor, profiting these prisons

Peonage - use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt

Sharecropping - landowners provided land and equipment to formerly enslaved people (or indigent White people). In exchange, the farmers were required to return a large part of the crops to the landowner, making it very difficult for the farmer to actually make any money

Black Codes - were created to restore social controls that had been in place with slave codes. These were very restrictive laws that undermined the newly gained legal rights of African Americans

Special Field Orders No. 15 - plan to redistribute land to freedmen in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. This was overturned by Andrew Johnson, leading to African Americans being evicted or getting tied into sharecropping contracts

Crop Liens - farmers who had little to no cash received food, farming equipment, and supplies. The harvested crops often did not create enough profit to repay the debt, leading to growing debt and further economic problems, continuing the cycle

Plessy v. Ferguson - was challenging Louisiana Law on segregation in public transportation. Established the “separate but equal doctrine.This created a rule that if you have a drop of blood that is from African descent, you are considered African American

Jim Crow Laws - local and state-level statutes passed (mostly in the South) that limited the rights of African Americans, especially their right to vote. This enforced racial segregation in hospitals, transportation, schools, and cemeteries

Nadir - seen as the lowest point of American race relations during the period between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of WWII

Red Record by Ida B. Wells - written to publicize the knowledge of lynchings in the US and called out murders of African Americans that were excused and ignored

Tulsa Race Massacre - destroyed more than 1250 homes and businesses in Greenwood (an affluent African American community, also known as “Black Wall Street”)

Double Consciousness - internal conflict felt by subordinated groups in an oppressive society. This gave African Americans a way to examine the unequal realities of American life

Booker T. Washington - advocated for industrial education and training as a means of economic advancement and independence

Nannie Helen BUrroughs - spoke about the importance of having women help with issues, especially in the church. She helped to establish the National Association of Colored Women in 1896 and founded a school for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1909

Black National Anthem - “Lift Every Voice and Sing;” acknowledges past sufferings and encourages African Americans to feel proud of their resilience and achievements and celebrates hope for the future

African American Women - their leadership was vital to communities in the generations after slavery. They entered the workforce to support their families and organized labor unions to help fight for better conditions and more equality. There were also women’s clubs created that fought race and gender stereotypes by promoting the beauty and strength of Black women

Citizens Savings Bank and Trust Company - founded in 1904; oldest, continuously operating African American-owned bank in the US. Became the first African American-owned bank in the US to become a member of the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Reserve System)

Following Reconstruction, the number of Black churches increased greatly, and these served as safe places for Black organizing, joy, and cultural expression; they also helped to create leadership opportunities and developed Black activists, musicians, and political leaders

Madame CJ Walker - First female millionaire in the US; she developed products that highlighted the beauty of Black people

Second Morrill Act - required that states demonstrate that race is not a factor in admission to educational institutions or create separate institutions for Black students (led to the creation of HBCUs)

Harlem Renaissance - flourishing of Black literacy, artistic and intellectual life that created a cultural revolution the US in the 1920s and 1930s

Langston Hughes - central figure in the Harlem Renaissance and a major poet, novelist, and playwright who explored the African experience, especially the lives of the working class. He focused on social justice and the celebration of Black culture

American Free School - provided an education to the children of enslaved and free Black people in NY; this helped prepare early Black abolitionists for leadership

The Great Migration - one of the largest internal migrations in US history where 6 million African Americans relocated from the South to the North, Midwest, and Western US from the 1910s to 1970s. Labor shortages in the North during WWI and WWII increased job opportunities in northern industrial cities, making more African Americans move there in search of economic opportunities. The new railway system and the Black press helped make the Great Migration possible.

Because of this Great Migration, white southerners wanted to keep their Black labor force, so they interfered with US Mail to prevent the Chicago Defender from reaching Black people, and they also made it illegal for trains to accept pre-paid tickets (blocking northern families from sending train tickets to relatives in the south)

Effects of Afro-Caribbean Migration to the US - created new blends of Black culture in the US; increased the religious and linguistic diversity of African American communities

Marcus Garvey - inspired African Americans who faced intense racial violence and discrimination to embrace their shared African heritage. He outlined the UNIA’s objective to achieve Black liberation from colonialism across the African diaspora, and this framework became the model for later Black nationalist movements throughout the 20th century. He also believed that there was no point in fighting for rights in the US when Africa would be better for them