The Blueprint & The Backlash
This political group wanted to treat the South much harsher after the Civil War, refused to offer amnesty, and pushed to expand rights for freedmen.
Radical Republicans
This historic amendment fundamentally changed American society by officially abolishing slavery across the entire nation.
13th Amendment
This was a law that required African Americans to pay money in order to vote.
Poll Tax
This is the highest court in the United States, which made the final decision in the Plessy v. Ferguson case.
Supreme Court
This entire region of the United States had its economy and society completely turned upside down after losing the Civil War.
The South
The name for the historical era of rebuilding the United States socially, physically, and politically after the Civil War.
Reconstruction
This amendment granted citizenship to anyone born in the United States and guaranteed equal protection under the law.
14th Amendment
This was a requirement that African Americans had to pass a reading or writing test before they could vote.
literacy tests
This 1896 Supreme Court decision made segregation legal in the South.
Plessy v. Ferguson
These were the specific laws passed to legally segregate and separate Black and white people in the South.
The system considered a major economic trap, where formerly enslaved people worked land in exchange for a small portion of the crops, leading to lifelong debt.
sharecropping
This amendment declared that no state could deny a citizen the right to vote based on race or color.
15th Amendment
This law stated that if your grandfather was a slave, you were not allowed to vote.
Grandfather Clause
This was the famous phrase used in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which said facilities could be divided by race as long as they were fair.
"separate but equal"
These were laws passed immediately after the Civil War to limit the freedom and power of former slaves.
Black Codes
This specific term was used during the post-Civil War era to describe the millions of men, women, and children who had just been released from slavery.
freedmen
This is the official vocabulary term for a formal, structural change or addition made to the text of the United States Constitution.
Amendment
Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses to completely violate this constitutional amendment, which was supposed to protect voting rights.
15th Amendment
This is the literal term for forcing people of different races to be separated in public places, like schools, trains, and restaurants.
segregation
This famous actor and Southern sympathizer assassinated President Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre just days after the Civil War ended.
John Wilkes Booth
This federal agency was established to address the immediate human crisis in the South by setting up hospitals, distributing food, and building schools for formerly enslaved people.
Freedmen's Bureau
To bypass the 13th Amendment's ban on forced labor, Southern states used a loophole in the justice system to arrest African Americans and force them to work under these restrictive local laws.
Black Codes
This terrorist group used violence and fear to try to bring Democratic control back to the South by stopping Black citizens from voting.
Ku Klux Klan
This political agreement officially ended Reconstruction by pulling federal troops out of the South, allowing white Democrats to take back total control.
Compromise of 1877
This Vice President became President immediately after Lincoln's assassination, taking over the job of running Reconstruction.
Andrew Johnson