Confederacy, Confederate States Of America

Between 1861 and 1865, the Confederacy, or the Confederate States of America, was comprised of 11 southern states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. These states seceded from the United States in 1861 for a number of reasons, including states' rights regarding slave ownership. Their attempted secession sparked the American Civil War.

Double V

Black leaders during the Second World War adopted this phrase to describe the specific type of battle African Americans would have to fight, a battle on two fronts—for "victory over our enemies at home and victory over our enemies on the battlefields abroad."

Emancipation Proclamation

During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in areas under Confederate control after January 1st, 1863.

Freedom Rides, Freedom Riders, Freedom Rider

In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized Black and white volunteers to travel together on buses and trains into the Deep South in order to challenge segregation laws. In response to these "Freedom Rides," the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the desegregation of all interstate buses, trains, and terminals in September 1961.

New Deal

A set of experimental government programs and reforms instituted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. The New Deal, through federal spending, price regulations, job placement, the expansion of unions, greater access to home loans, and social security for the elderly and disabled, was meant to bring relief to a population reeling from the Great Depression. It did transform the nation in some significant ways but did not succeed in ending the Great Depression.

Poll Tax, Poll Taxes

A tax that must be paid in order to be eligible to vote. In the late-19th and early-20th centuries, many southern states required a poll tax for voter registration, effectively disenfranchising Black citizens who often couldn't afford the fee.

Proposition 14, Prop 14

California Proposition 14 was an amendment to the California state constitution proposed by citizens of the state who wanted to nullify the Rumford Fair Housing Act, a 1963 law that forbade property owners from denying housing to someone on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, marital status, or physical handicap.

Radical Reconstruction, Reconstruction

Also referred to as Congressional Reconstruction, this phase of post-Civil War Reconstruction began in 1867 when the U.S. Congress, dominated by Radical Republicans, passed a number of laws called the Reconstruction Acts. These acts mandated a number of major reforms to southern state governments, including the enfranchisement of all Black men and the ratification of the 14th Amendment, which secured equal protection rights for former slaves. 

Radical Reconstruction officially ended with the Compromise of 1877, in which the white South agreed to accept the Republican candidate for president in return for the withdrawal of all federal troops from the South. By the end of it all, the nation would be forever transformed, and the legacy of this era would be debated for over a century, until the modern Civil Rights Movement set out to finish what Radical Reconstruction had begun.

Sit-ins, Play-ins, Swim-ins, Bowl-ins, Read-ins

Young civil rights activists, beginning in 1960, adopted these tactics to demand access to segregated facilities throughout the South. They literally sat in seats at lunch counters restricted for whites, played in segregated public parks, swam in segregated public pools, bowled in Jim Crow bowling alleys, and read in Jim Crow public libraries.

White Death, White Terror

African-American writer Richard Wright coined the term "white death," or "white terror," to refer to the white-on-Black crime that haunted Black communities, particularly in the South through the mid-20th century, and prevented many hard-working citizens from voting, owning property, and resisting segregation laws.