The South after Reconstruction

Southern states undermined efforts at equality with laws designed to disfranchise blacks, despite of a series of federal equal-rights laws.

After the Civil War, many African Americans and former slaves became Republicans and officeholders.

"Carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" are pejorative terms that were used by Southerners during the Reconstruction period.

The American South remained heavily rural for decades after the Civil War; sharecropping was widespread as a response to economic upheaval.

Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage and legal equality for freedmen.