13th Amendment
a constitutional change ratified in 1865 abolishing slavery
Freedman's Bureau
a federal agency established in 1865, at the end of the Civil War to help and protect the 4 million newly freed Americans as they transitioned out of enslavement
Black codes
Laws enacted in 1865 and 1866 in the former Confederate states to restrict freedom and opportunities for African Americans
Radical Republicans
during and after the Civil War, a member of the Republican Party who believed in and fought for the emancipation of slaves and, later, the equal rights of American blacks
14th Amendment
a constitutional change ratified in 1868 granting citizenship to all former slaves by declaring that anyone born in the United States is a citizen; it also extended to blacks the right to due process of law and equal protection under the law
15th Amendment
a constitutional change ratified in 1870 granting black males the right to vote
Segregation
the forced separation of races in public places
Tenant Farming
an agriculture system where landowners rent land to workers who pay for the use of it in cash and share the harvested crops raised, or both
Sharecropping
a type of tenant farming where the owner provides land and money needed to purchase equipment and possibly food or clothing as well
Debt Peonage
a system of servitude in which debtors are forced to pay in work for the person they owe
Amnesty
a general pardon for a crime, usually a political one, issued by a government to a specific group of people
Ku Klux Klan
established in 1866, a white supremacy group of terrorists that tormented and killed blacks to resist Reconstruction
Poll Tax
a tax of a set rate that is imposed on each person in a population
Literacy Test
a test of one's ability to read and write, especially for former slaves
Grandfather clause
a provision of law that exempts anyone already involved in a certain activity from any new restrictions on the activity that are established by the law
Jim Crow Laws
any of the laws legalizing racial segregation of blacks and whites that were enacted in Southern states beginning in the 1880s and enforced through the 1950s
Lynched
to kill someone without approval by law, often by hanging or a mob of people
Plessy v. Ferguson
the 1896 Supreme Court case that established the controversial "separate but equal" doctrine by which segregation is legal and as long as the facilities provided to blacks were equivalent to whites
Carpetbaggers
Union soldiers that went to the South and took advantage of the South's bad condition
Scalawags
southerners who opposed the secession and were normally poor farmers