scalawag

Hiram Rhodes Revels

Hiram Rhodes Revels (1827-1901) was the nation's first African American senator.

sharecropper

a person who rents a plot of land from another person and farms it in exchange for a share of the crop

Ku Klux Klan

a secret society organized in the South after the Civil War to reassert white supremacy by means of violence

poll tax

a tax required before a person can vote

"New South"

a term used to describe the South in the late 1800s when efforts were being made to expand the economy by building up industry

scalawag

a white southerner who supported the Republicans during

Plessy v. Ferguson

an 1896 court case in which the Supreme Court ruled that segregation in public facilities was legal as long as the facilities were equal

Compromise of 1877

an agreement by Republican presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes to end Reconstruction in return for congressional Democrats accepting his inauguration as President after the disputed election of 1876

literacy test

an examination to see if a person can read and write; used in the past to restrict voting rights

carpetbagger

an uncomplimentary nickname for a northerner who went to the South after the Civil War

grandfather clause

in the post-Reconstruction South, a law that excused a voter from a literacy test if his grandfather had been eligible to vote on January 1, 1867

Jim Crow laws

laws that separated people of different races in public places in the South

segregation

the legal separation of people based on racial, ethnic, or other differences