Steps Toward Equality

1. Steps Toward Equality

2. 13th Amendment The 13th Amendment helped African Americans toward equality because it outlawed slavery.

3. Johnson’s Reconstruction Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan allowed Confederate States to rejoin the Union once they had written a new Constitution, canceled it’s war debts, ratified the 13th Amendment, and repealed it’s act of secession. His planhinderedAfrican Americans from gaining equal rights because he vetoed a lot of the equal rights legislation written by Congress.

4. Freedmen’s Bureau Although it was not funded very long, the Freedmen’s Bureau helped because it was a government agency created by Congress to help assist former slaves by providing necessities, medical care, and education to freedmen.

5. Black Codes The Black Codes hindered by limiting the rights of African Americans. They were created by wealthy Southern planters to control their former slaves by giving them only a portion of the rights a citizen had. A typical law forced blacks to work or face being arrested, essentially forcing them to labor on farms or house servants.

6. Civil Rights Act of 1866 The Civil Rights Act of 1866 helped by outlawing Black Codes. Although Johnson vetoed this bill, Congress overrode the veto.

7. 14th Amendment It helped because it defined citizenship as anyone born in the United States and granted equal rights to all citizens.

8. Military Reconstruction Act This Radical Republican plan helped by dividing the south into military districts to oversee and the enforcement of Reconstruction legislation.

9. Johnsons Impeachment It helped because Radical Republicans were tired of Johnson’s vetoes. Although Johnson remained in office by one vote, he lost credibility and power.

10. Sharecropping A farming system that hinderedby keeping blacks poor and uneducated.

11. 15th Amendment It helpedby giving African- Americans the right to vote.

12. New State Constitutions It helpedby replacing all confederate governments in the south.

13. African- Americans Office Holders It helped because blacks began to gain political power.

14. Ku Klux Klan It hinderedby terrorizing blacks and keeping them from voting.

15. Enforcement Act They helped by outlawing people (Ku Klux Klan) from interfering with the right to voteand other violations of the equal protection of the law.

16. Amnesty Act of 1872 It hindered by pardoning Confederate officials and allowing them to vote and gain political office.

17. Compromise of 1877 It hindered by ending Reconstruction. It allowed Hayes to become president (Republican), withdrew the military from the south, and returned Southern Democrats to power.

18. Poll Tax They hindered by making voters pay a tax to vote. This kept blacks and poor whites from voting.

19. Literacy Tests They hindered by making the freedmen take tests before they could vote. They discriminated against illiterate blacks and poor whites.

20. Jim Crow Laws They hindered by legally segregating whites and blacks.

21. Plessy v. Ferguson The Supreme Court case that hindered by legalizing segregation and instituting the “Separate But Equal” doctrine.