African Americans - government

Question 1

What is the thirteenth amendment?

Answer 1

signed February 1865: banned slavery

There were 4 million African American slaves in the USA at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861

Question 2

When did Slaves become free?

Answer 2

In April 1865 slaves became free.

However, Former slaves were caught between being legally free and yet not being seen as equal, they also had no means of making a living.

Question 3

What is Sharecropping?

Answer 3

White landowners allowed former slaves to work their land in return for a considerable share of what was produced.

Question 4

What were the limitations of sharecropping?

Answer 4

• African Americans suffered a huge amount of violence in the aftermath of the war
• The amount of segregation increased markedly.

Question 5

What was the uncertainty in the immediate post-war period?

Answer 5

Government was uncertain about what to do about the millions of freed slaves

and about the Southern rebels whom they had defeated.

Question 6

What is Reconstruction?

Answer 6

A period from 1865 to 1876 during which a republican led Congress attempted to promote African American rights.

Question 7

What are the Black Codes?

Answer 7

• Restricted the rights of African Americans to compete for work with white people.
• Gave states the right to punish vagrant former slaves, and return them to forced labour.

Question 8

How did Congress take action for civil rights?

(radical republicans)

Answer 8

The Radical Republicans, led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner

established the Freedmen’s Bureau

Question 9

Who are the Radical Republicans?

Answer 9

Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner

• Republicans in Congress who had been active opponents of slavery.
• They were influential, but had limited support in the North.

Question 10

What is the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Answer 10

Set up by congress in march 1865 to care for former slaves.
* It provided shelter, food, hospitals and education.
* It set up howard university
* dismanteled in 1872

Question 11

What is the 1875 Civil Rights Acts?

Answer 11

1 March 1875: All citizens entitled to ‘the full and equal enjoyment of public places’

Question 12

What is the 14th and 15th amendment?

Answer 12

14th - 1868:
No state could deny any American citizen full rights.

15th - 1870:
granted African American men the right to vote

Question 13

What +when was the First Reconstruction Act?

Answer 13

1867: The 11 Confederate States were divided into five military districts.

There were to be new state constitutions made by elected delegates - regardless of race

Question 14

What are the Enforcement Acts?

Answer 14

1870 - First: This banned discrimination based on race.

1871 - Second: This overturned state laws which prevented African Americans from voting

Question 15

What is the significance of the measures passed during reconstruction?

Answer 15

• laws were being passed to give equal rights and against discrimination,
• they were evidentially not working however, as several enforcement laws had to also be passed to creat change

Question 16

Who was Johnson’s successor?

Answer 16

Grant
worked more closely with Congress, and used federal troops to support the legislation, leading to remarkable changes.

Question 17

Why did civil rights decline after 1877?

Answer 17

The role of federal institutions in promoting rights declined sharply:

• Congress did not defend the changes it had made.
• Presidents did not support civil rights.

Question 18

What happened when Hayes was elected?

Answer 18

• Congressional Reconstruction ended, the troops were withdrawn, and southern states would be able to ignore the Reconstruction Legislation.
• Congress and the president accepted the view that African Amercians will withdraw from national politics.

Question 19

What are examples of Jim Crow laws?

Answer 19

1881 Tennessee - segregated rail travel - which spread through the south.

1899 - segregated waiting rooms.

Question 20

What were the measures against voting? + voter stats

Guilded age

Answer 20

• Southern states introduced literacy tests
• The Grandfather clauses

1896: 13,000 Black voters
1900: 5,000

Question 21

Wilkins v. Mississippi

Answer 21

1898, Wilkins v. Mississippi

the court declared that discriminatory voter registration laws were constitutional

Question 22

What is 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson?

Answer 22

BAD

• 1896
• The idea ‘separate but equal’ was enshrined in legal ruling.

Question 23

What is Brown v. Board?

Answer 23

1954- ended the legal basis for segregation.

Question 24

Which elements of the post-1877 period remained in the 1960s?

Answer 24

African Americans still faced barriers when trying to register to vote in the South.
Segregation remained and considerable racial prejudice

Question 25

what was the result of US v. Cruikshank

Answer 25

enforcement acts ruled unconstitutional (1876)