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Ku Klux Klan:
From 1868 through the early 1870s the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) functioned as a loosely organized group of political and social terrorists. The Klan's goals included the political defeat of the Republican Party and the maintenance of absolute white supremacy in response to newly gained civil and political rights by southern blacks after the Civil War.
They were more successful in achieving their political goals then they were achieving their social goals during the Reconstruction era.

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http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3557

Three decades before the Civil War (writers created a stereotype known as the plantation legend):
- The South was described as a land of aristocratic planters, beautiful southern belles, poor white trash, faithful household slaves, and superstitious field hands = a glorified, idyllic image created by the perception of white people regarding the Antebellum Era and its qualities

The perception of the North:
- The South was affected by a clear social hierarchy (with the blacks in the botton) and an indifference to money

The South as a diverse and complex region

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The Reconstruction after the Civil War had its share of difficulties. Under the time of 1865-1866, the new Southern state legislatures passed restrictive rules, known as "black codes", to control the labor and behavior of former slaves and African Americans.
These laws restricted the freedom of African Americans, such as working below minimum wage.

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Blacks were not perceived as slaves, there were merely second-class citizens (which is practially the same as being a slave due to their mistreatment)

By 1900: Lynchings of blacks still took place

Black people wanted to fight for their rights to be equal to the whites.

1948: The desegregation (however, another decade would pass before it actually occurred)

1955: the Supreme Court stated that segregated education should be ended. But ten years later, more than 75% of the school districts remained segregated and 50% of the black population was below the poverty line.

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The Northern goal was now to destroy the South and its institution of slavery and to then give the restored Union a "new birth of freedom".

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The real fighting begins. Numerous huge battles are fought like Shiloh in Tennessee, Gaines' Mill, Second Manassas, and Fredericksburg in Virginia and Antietam in Maryland. The battles foreshadowed the even bigger battles that were yet to come in the following years.

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By the spring of 1865 all the principle Confederate armies surrendered. On May 10 1861, the Union captured the Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia which resulted in collapsing all resistance.

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The event that triggered The Civil War happened at Fort Summer in Charleston Bay.

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Refers to the racial segregation in the United States --> legally or socially enforced separation of African Americans and whites

Applies to the general discrimination against colored people by white communities

The American Civil War had been fought over the right to own slaves, where the Southern Confederacy - formed by delegations from seven Southern slave states that had proclaimed their secession fromt the Union - was ultimately defeated by the Union in the North (referred to the United States of America, the national government and the 23 free states and 5 border states that supported it). Furthermore Abraham Lincoln (president who abolished slavery) had given his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Despite a yearlong fight for equality, the black communities in America still endured mistreatment and discrimination on a daily basis - which contradicted the main aspect of the Declaration of Independence (1776) that "all men are created equal"

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The Antebellum period in American history is generally considered the period before the Civil War of 1812. Some historians expand the period to all the years from the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 to the beginning of the Civil war.
Antebellum is the latin term that means "before the war".

Slavery and women's rights:
- Slavery was the major issue of the Antebellum period that sparked the Civil war. The South depended on slave labor for a significant portion of its economy. Moral and legal concerns over slave labor in a country that preached equality among all men became overwhelming.
- Women's rights did also become an important issue during the Antebellum period. Many women argued for political privileges and equality under the law. Important names to mention in relation to that is; Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who organized the Seneca Falls Convention for Women's Rights.

The effects of the Antebellum period:
The Antebellum Period had a profound effect on the course of American history, including westward expansion to the Pacific, a population shift from farms to industrial centers, sectional divisions that ended in civil war, the abolition of slavery and the growth of feminist and temperance movements.