Introduction to Civil Rights - Key Terms Flashcards
Confederate
Collective name for Southern states
Union
Collective name for Northern states
Reconstruction
Followed the Civil War when the 11 confederate states were rebuilt, reformed and restored to the Union
Lynching
Unlawfully killing, usually by hanging
Jim Crow laws
Legalised segregation in Southern states. Caste system laws that allowed discrimination and introduced segregation.
Segregation
Separation of blacks and whites in every aspect of life
De jure segregation
Legal segregation of the races as set down in the law (Jim Crow laws)
De facto segregation
Segregation by ‘fact’, not of law
Federal Government
Where each separate state governs itself but joins together in unity
Congress
Part of the legislative branch of federal US government in charge of making laws
Supreme Court
Judicial
13th Amendment
1865 - ended slavery
14th Amendment
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
Constitution
The fundamental rules and principles by which a country is governed
PLESSY v FERGUSON
The Supreme COurt said that separate but equal facilities were not against the 14th Amendment.
Grandfather clause
Excluding pre-existing classes from the requirements of pre-existing legislation
Poll tax
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
Sharecropper
The black labourer provides the labour in return for a share of the crop. White provides the land
Great Migration
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%
State Rights
Right of the individual states (as opposed to federal government)
NAACP
‘National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People’, set up in 1909 to gain black equality
CORE
‘Congress of Racial Equality’, set up in 1942 by James Farmer, who believed in non-violent protests inspired by Ghandi
Harlem Renaissance
Period between 1919-1930 when black culture flourishes, in areas such as dance, music, poetry and drama
Literacy Test
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.
Democrat
Party for slavery
Republican
Party opposing slavery
