REGENTS REVIEW – RECONSTRUCTION TO WORLD WAR II
Reconstruction was the time period following the Civil War when the southern states needed to be
readmitted to the Union. It was also a time when newly freed African Americans faced discrimination
throughout society.
Presidential Reconstruction
Lincoln and Andrew Johnson (the only southern
senator to NOT support secession
10 percent plan – 10% of the residents in the states
had to take an oath of loyalty before being
readmitted
Johnson pardoned former Confederate leaders
Congressional Reconstruction
Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens; known as
Radical Republicans
Wade-Davis Bill 51% of the residents had to take
an oath of loyalty
Wanted to punish former Confederate leaders by
not allowing them to vote or hold office
Military Reconstruction – divided the south into
five military districts
Freedmen’s Bureau – Lincoln’s idea to provide food, clothing, job training, medical care, shelter and
education. Johnson did NOT continue funding of this program.
13th amendment – abolished slavery
14th amendment – citizenship
15th amendment – right to vote for African American males
Black Codes – Southern state laws that restricted the rights of African Americans
Sharecropping – former slaves rented out the land but remained in a cycle of debt
KKK – organization founded in Tennessee to prevent blacks from voting; used violence
Andrew Johnson faced impeachment due to his violation of the Tenure of Office Act. He missed being
removed by ONE vote in the Senate.
Election of 1876 – Rutherford B. Hayes defeated Samuel J. Tilden by one vote. This disputed election led
to the end of Reconstruction as the Democrats agreed to not challenge the results if the Republicans
agreed to remove the military, thus ending Reconstruction.
“New South” – This term was used by Henry Grady to describe how the southern states were going to
catch up to the industrial north following Reconstruction.
Jim Crow Laws – Southern state laws that segregated African Americans and whites in all public facilities.
Poll Tax – pay to vote
Literacy Test – read to vote
Grandfather Clauses – exempted white voters from the above
1896 Plessy vs. Ferguson – This Supreme Court decision declared that segregation was legal in all public
facilities, establishing the precedent of “separate but equal.”
Homer Plessy was a 30-year-old arrested for sitting in the white section of a Louisiana train. He was 1/8
black, so he could easily have passed for being white. But he was deliberately challenging the law. The
Supreme Court, in a 7-1 decision, ruled that the Louisiana segregation laws were constitutional. The lone
dissenting vote was Justice John Marshall Harlan. One justice took a leave of absence, Justice David
Brewer, in order to be the president of a special commission to settle the Venezuelan Boundary Dispute.
Booker T. Washington
Former slave
Founded the Tuskegee Institute
Believed that African Americans should be patient,
learn a skill, get educated, and eventually equality
will come
The first African American formerly invited to dine
at the White House (by Theodore Roosevelt)
W.E.B. DuBois
Free African American from Massachusetts
Founded the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People)
Believed that African-Americans should fight
actively in court and be aggressive in the struggle
for equality
First African American to receive a PhD from
Harvard
Harlem Renaissance – during the 1920s, time of unprecedented cultural and artistic achievements for
African Americans
Tuskegee Experiment – This was a government program to study the impact of syphilis on black men in
Alabama. The men were told they were being treated, and even though penicillin was discovered in the
1940s, the men were not given the medicine.
World War II – Tuskegee Airmen; first African American fighter pilots