Black Codes

A set of laws passed by southern states after the Civil War in order to restrict the rights of former slaves, to limit their choice in employment, and to prevent them from owning property. Congress nullified the codes with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the 14th Amendment. The Black Codes are often confused with Jim Crow laws, which dealt specifically with separating the races in public spaces.

Blackface

Makeup, initially burnt cork or coal, applied to the faces and limbs of white performers, like antebellum-era minstrel actor Thomas "Daddy" Rice, to give them an exaggeratedly Black appearance—far darker than African Americans. This became abundantly clear when African Americans themselves started performing in the 1840s and were forced to "black up" with the makeup in order to conform to the expectations of minstrelsy.

Grandfather Clause

A loophole created by southern legislatures in the late-19th and early-20th centuries to protect illiterate whites from disenfranchisement. The clause exempted any citizen whose grandfather had been eligible to vote in 1867 from other voting requirements, including literacy tests. Since only whites were eligible to vote prior to the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870, the clause unfairly disadvantaged Black citizens.

Jim Crow

A reference to the "Jim Crow" laws that imposed segregation on Blacks in the south, after the end of the slavery. Jim Crow laws forced African Americans to eat, travel, work separately from whites, often under much worse conditions. And guess what? They couldn't even think of marrying a white person.

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.

Radical Reconstruction, Congressional 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. 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.

Segregation

Any policy for separating people on the basis of race.

Sharecropping

A form of tenant farming that developed in the South after the Civil War in which workers farm a plot of land in exchange for supplies and a share of the crop.

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.