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Freedman's Bureau Established
Federal bureau to help freedman and free Blacks integrate into American society during the Reconstruction Period. It provided federal aid (food, shelter, supplies, medical services, and land). This did not radically transform white supremacy's hold on society as sharecropping and crop linen kept many Black farmers in poverty and in debt to white former masters. -
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Reconstruction Era
Reconstruction marked a period involvedness in the racialization of rights in America by establishing the Fourteenth Amendment, cementing birthright citizenship which mandated the Civil Rights Bill (1866). To encourage enforcement in the South, the Reconstruction Act allowed freedmen to vote and targeted noncompliant states. Also known as the great Constitutional Revolution. Broadly, it was known for Republican control of the South, Black political power, and federal protection of rights. -
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Establishment of the Black Codes
Southern state governments trying to restrict and control lives of Free Blacks. It granted them rights to marriage, land, and marginal access to courts. It denied rights to testify against white people, serve on juries, serve in state militia, and suffrage. -
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Presidential Reconstruction
President Johnson's attempt at unifying the nation through proclamations and pardons to nearly all white Southerners except for Confederate leaders/planters exceeding in $20,000 net worth. He, a champion of white yeomanship, believed in white unification at all cost, even individually pardoning many Confederate leaders and granting the new Southern government a free hand in state affairs during Reconstruction. The racist Black Codes were created in a rallying cry of white fear as response. -
Abraham Lincoln's Assassination
Lincoln killed by John Wilkes Booth in Ford's Theatre on Good Friday. Booth wanted to aid the traitorous Confederacy even post-Civil War. This caused Andrew Johnson to rise to presidency the same year. -
Klu Klux Klan Established
The military arm of the racist violent Democratic people of the South. It is a designated terrorist organization, and the Enforcement Acts (1870-1871) were created to launch the federal military against the KKK and to combat state authority with nationalistic Reconstruction in the South. -
Reconstruction and Tenure of Office Act
Congress ratified the Reconstruction Act (spurring the Radical Reconstruction Era) which divided up the South into 5 military districts to create new state governments and allow Black men to vote. The Tenure of Office Act barred the president from firing cabinet members for no reason. It was meant to curb Andrew Johnson's corruption in office. -
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Radical Reconstruction Era
A time of Radical Republican success in socio-political progress for Black people. -
Articles for Impeachment
After Johnson removed Radical Republican Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the Senate reviewed the House's request for impeachment towards President Johnson. -
Fourteenth Amendment Ratification
Controversial amendment that allowed birthright citizenship to be constitutionalized and enforced for freedmen to give them the federal right to vote, own land, and begin to push away from white supremacy and control. The Fourteenth Amendment only passed unilaterally as the South's House representation was threatened. -
Fifteenth Amendment Ratification
The Fifteenth Amendment prohibited federal and state government from race-based suffrage discrimination, helping spur the Radical Republicans. This further strengthened federal control over civil matters. -
Hiram Revels in Senate
Hiram Revels became the first BIPOC Senate-holder and federal officeholder in U.S. history. He paved the way for other BIPOC people, especially free Blacks, to participate in American political life. Many freedmen joined the Union League, an organization closely linked to the Republican Party, to become politically educated and registered to vote. -
Colfax Massacre
A white mob killed a hundred or so freedmen and 50 Black militia after surrendering to the violent terrorists. This marked the end of carpetbag rule in the South as the white mob hated the Northerners who moved South to gain political power in the new governments. This is an example of the terrorist organizations such as the Klu Klux Klan that emerged in the South during Reconstruction. -
Civil Rights Act of 1875
The last piece of Reconstruction federal legislation entailed outlawing racial discrimination in publicly accommodating places such as privately owned hotels, theaters, and parks. -
Sharecropping in the South
Sharecropping was an unfair compromise between Black agriculturalists and the white planter class to allow Black families to rent land in exchange for a portion of the crop given to white landowners. Also known as gang labor due to the lack of white supervision over Black farmers. This is similar but vastly more unequal economically than the crop lien (usually cotton) system created for white yeoman farmers during Reconstruction.