Jim Crow

Ida B. Wells

A daughter of two slaves who attended Fisk University and was a teacher and journalist. She was highly anti-lynching and went on a national tour to support it, and so had her newspaper office destroyed as a result. She continued to speak out against lynching and also supported and became a part of civil rights groups and was a supporter of women's suffrage.

Grandfather Clause

A device used by southern states to disenfranchise African Americans. It restricted voting to those whose grandfathers had voted before 1867.

Jim Crow

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws passed from the end of Reconstruction in 1877 through the mid-1950s by which white southerners reasserted their dominance by denying African Americans basic social, economic, and civil rights, such as the right to vote.

Plessy v. Ferguson

1890. Louisiana passed a law that forced african americas to sit in a separate train cart. Plessy, a 1/8 african american man, got him self purposefully arrested by buying a first clase ticket, and planning it with the train company. They argued that it violated the 13th and 14th amendment. After loosing in lower courts, the supreme court upheld the lower courts decisions.

Birth of a Nation

1915 film about Civil War and arisal of KKK. first time a film impacted society in such a way like this film. had a certain vision to manipulate the audience and history. had one of the first mass battle views. moving shots, rifles, no blood. lots of animals to make it more realistic. flashback. showed a lot of stereotypes of blacks, like they're leering, violent, happy to serve white man.MAJOR propaganda film.

Sam Hose

A black laborer in Georgia who killed his boss in self-defense in 1899. He was seized by a white mob and chained to a tree and tortured. While still alive, he was doused with kerosene and set on fire. A crowd watched the horror "with unfeigning satisfaction." This was a flagrant example of southern lynchings of blacks at the turn of the twentieth century.

Poll Tax

A fee of several dollars that had to be paid before a person could vote; a device used in some southern states to prevent African Americans from voting.

Literacy Test

A method to deny blacks (and poor whites) right to vote during the Jim Crow Era by requiring reading or civics test in order to vote. Could be selectively applied. Prohibited by the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Separate but equal

An argument that states made claiming Jim Crow laws did not violate the equal protection clause because the separate schools and facilities for blacks were equal to those provided for whites

Wilmington Insurrection

Democratic Party white supremacists illegally seized power and overturned the elected government in Wilmington, North Carolina. Led by Alfred Waddell, who was defeated in 1878 as the congressional incumbent by Daniel L. Russell, more than 2000 white men participated in an attack on the black newspaper, Daily Record, burning down the building. They ran officials and community leaders out of the city, and killed many blacks in widespread attacks, especially destroying the Brooklyn neighborhood. After the riot, more than 2,100 blacks left the city permanently, having to abandon their businesses and properties, turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city.

The Redeemers

Redeemers were southern Democrats who wanted to restore white supremacy in the South. They wanted to replace "bayonet rule" with "home rule."