Introduction to Civil Rights - Key Terms

Question 1

Confederate

Answer 1

Collective name for Southern states

Question 2

Union

Answer 2

Collective name for Northern states

Question 3

Reconstruction

Answer 3

Followed the Civil War when the 11 confederate states were rebuilt, reformed and restored to the Union

Question 4

Lynching

Answer 4

Unlawfully killing, usually by hanging

Question 5

Jim Crow laws

Answer 5

Legalised segregation in Southern states. Caste system laws that allowed discrimination and introduced segregation.

Question 6

Segregation

Answer 6

Separation of blacks and whites in every aspect of life

Question 7

De jure segregation

Answer 7

Legal segregation of the races as set down in the law (Jim Crow laws)

Question 8

De facto segregation

Answer 8

Segregation by ‘fact’, not of law

Question 9

Federal Government

Answer 9

Where each separate state governs itself but joins together in unity

Question 10

Congress

Answer 10

Part of the legislative branch of federal US government in charge of making laws

Question 11

Supreme Court

Answer 11

Judicial

Question 12

13th Amendment

Answer 12

1865 - ended slavery

Question 13

14th Amendment

Answer 13

1868 - stated that all citizens had equality before the law and that federal government could intervene if states tried to deny rights of citizenship to any citizen

Question 14

Constitution

Answer 14

The fundamental rules and principles by which a country is governed

Question 15

PLESSY v FERGUSON

Answer 15

The Supreme COurt said that separate but equal facilities were not against the 14th Amendment.

Question 16

Grandfather clause

Answer 16

Excluding pre-existing classes from the requirements of pre-existing legislation

Question 17

Poll tax

Answer 17

Introduced by Southern States legislatures to deliberately penalise blacks and prevent them from voting. Political rights therefore short lived - by 1900 only 3% of Southern blacks could vote

Question 18

Sharecropper

Answer 18

The black labourer provides the labour in return for a share of the crop. White provides the land

Question 19

Great Migration

Answer 19

Between 1910 and 1970, 6 million blacks migrated from South to North for economic opportunities. In 1919, 89% of blacks lived in the South but by 1970 it was 53%

Question 20

State Rights

Answer 20

Right of the individual states (as opposed to federal government)

Question 21

NAACP

Answer 21

‘National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People’, set up in 1909 to gain black equality

Question 22

CORE

Answer 22

‘Congress of Racial Equality’, set up in 1942 by James Farmer, who believed in non-violent protests inspired by Ghandi

Question 23

Harlem Renaissance

Answer 23

Period between 1919-1930 when black culture flourishes, in areas such as dance, music, poetry and drama

Question 24

Literacy Test

Answer 24

Introduced by Southern State legislatures to deliberately penalise blacks and prevent them from voting, based on the knowledge that inequality means many blacks were uneducated and illiterate. However, white illiterates could still vote.

Question 25

Democrat

Answer 25

Party for slavery

Question 26

Republican

Answer 26

Party opposing slavery