KKK (Ku Klux Klan)
organization that promotes hatred and discrimination against specific ethnic and religious groups
tenant farmer
Farmer who works land owned by another and pays rent either in cash or crops
Sharecropping
A system used on southern farms after the Civil War in which farmers worked land owned by someone else in return for a small portion of the crops.
New South
After the Civil War, southerners promoted a new vision for a self-sufficient southern economy built on modern capitalist values, industrial growth, and improved transportation. Henry Grady played an important role.
New Freedom
Democrat Woodrow Wilson's political slogan in the presidential campaign of 1912; Wilson wanted to improve the banking system, lower tariffs, and, by breaking up monopolies, give small businesses freedom to compete.
Freedmen's Bureau
Organization run by the army to care for and protect southern Blacks after the Civil War
Black Codes
Laws denying most legal rights to newly freed slaves; passed by southern states following the Civil War
Scalawags
A derogatory term for Southerners who were working with the North to buy up land from desperate Southerners
Carpetbaggers
A northerner who went to the South immediately after the Civil War; especially one who tried to gain political advantage or other advantages from the disorganized situation in southern states
Andrew Johnson
17th President of the United States, A Southerner form Tennessee, as V.P. when Lincoln was killed, he became president. He opposed radical Republicans who passed Reconstruction Acts over his veto. The first U.S. president to be impeached, he survived the Senate removal by only one vote. He was a very weak president.
Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States saved the Union during the Civil War and emancipated the slaves; was assassinated by Booth (1809-1865)
Plantation
A large farm in tropical and subtropical climates that specializes in the production of one or two crops for sale, usually to a more developed country.
Hiram Revels
first African American senator
Blanche K. Bruce
An American politician. Bruce represented Mississippi as a U.S. Senator from 1875 to 1881 and was the first black to serve a full term in the Senate.
Fifteenth Amendment
The constitutional amendment adopted in 1870 to extend suffrage to African Americans.
14th Amendment
Declares that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens and are guaranteed equal protection of the laws
Impeachment
A formal document charging a public official with misconduct in office
Ulysses S. Grant
an American general and the eighteenth President of the United States (1869-1877). He achieved international fame as the leading Union general in the American Civil War.
poor whites
They rented farm land from landowners and paid for rent with crops. Owned no slaves, but could vote.
Ten Percent Plan
Lincoln's plan that allowed a Southern state to form its own government afetr ten percent of its voters swore an oath of loyalty to the United States