US History - Review Part 2

8 Questions

What was the primary purpose of the Freedmen's Bureau established in 1865?

To provide assistance to formerly enslaved African Americans and poor whites in the South

Which amendment to the US Constitution prohibited the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude?

15th Amendment

What was the main purpose of Black Codes passed by Southern states after the Civil War?

To restrict the freedom of African Americans and ensure a stable labor supply

What was the primary purpose of poll taxes in the United States?

To disenfranchise African Americans from voting

How were literacy tests often used during the Reconstruction Era?

To keep people of color and poor whites from voting

What was the primary purpose of Jim Crow Laws in the Southern United States?

To promote racial segregation

What was the result of segregation in the United States after the abolition of slavery?

African Americans continued to be marginalized through enforced segregation and diminished access

In what year was the poll tax finally outlawed in the United States?

1964

Study Notes

Reconstruction Era

The Freedmen's Bureau was established in 1865 to provide assistance to formerly enslaved African Americans and poor whites in the South with basic needs such as food, housing, education, and employment.

Reconstruction Amendments

13th Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery in the United States.
14th Amendment (1868): Granted citizenship and equal protection under the law to all persons born or naturalized in the United States.
15th Amendment (1870): Prohibited the denial of voting rights based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Economic Exploitation

Sharecropping: A system where landless farmers, often African Americans, worked on land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crops produced.

Racial Oppression

Black Codes: Laws passed by Southern states after the Civil War to restrict the freedom of African Americans and ensure a stable labor supply.
Poll Taxes: A monetary fee or tax levied on individuals to be eligible to vote in an election, disproportionately used to disenfranchise African Americans from voting in the United States until outlawed in 1964.
Literacy Tests: Used to keep people of color and poor whites from voting, administered at the discretion of voter registration officials.

Segregation

Jim Crow Laws: State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States.
Segregation: The practice of requiring separate housing, education, and other services for people of color, made law several times in 19th- and 20th-century America.
Plessy vs. Ferguson (1896): A landmark Supreme Court case that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the 'separate but equal' doctrine.

End of Reconstruction

Compromise of 1877: An informal agreement that ended the Reconstruction era, resulting in the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the election of Rutherford B. Hayes as President.