Encyclopedia

This interactive encyclopedia offers teachers and students access to terms, people, and events related to the history of Slavery in America. Many entries include reference material and some of the biographies on prominent figures contain suggestions for teaching as well as links to related sections of this site. The encyclopedia will continue to grow throughout the course of this project.

Race Riots: Organized and spontaneous outbursts of urban violence resulting from a great revolution in racial relations that began in the South as a consequence of the Civil War. Formerly enslaved people demanded political, social, and economic rights associated with citizenship and freedom under the law, and whites responded to these demands with violence. Much of this occurred in rural America and evolved from terrorist attacks on blacks and white Republicans by groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan, to a ritualized epidemic of brutal lynchings and murders. As part of this violent landscape, race riots broke out in urban America beginning first in the South but then spreading to the cities and towns of the Midwest and North. The first one occurred in New Orleans in the summer of 1866, when a crowd of police and whites attacked several hundred black demonstrators parading in favor of suffrage. Thirty-six people died, and all but one were black or white Republicans. Other such riots followed continuously well into next century. Among them were: Colfax, Louisiana (1873), New Orleans, Louisiana (1874); Washington County, Texas (1888); Phoenix, South Carolina (1898); Wilmington, North Carolina (1898); New Orleans, Louisiana (1900); Boston, Massachusetts (1903), Atlanta, Georgia (1906); Brownsville, Texas (1906), Springfield, Illinois (1908); East St. Louis, Missouri (1917); Houston, Texas (1917); Charleston, South Carolina (1919), Chicago, Illinois (1919); Elaine, Arkansas (1919); Longview, Texas (1919), Omaha, Nebraska (1919), Washington, D. C. (1919), Tulsa, Oklahoma (1921); Detroit, Michigan (1943), and Harlem, New York (1943). In the summer of 1919, major confrontations occurred in over 25 towns and cities. In most of these riots, white mobs started the violence, but in many cases, blacks fought back, presaging the more militant mood of black Americans in the 1920s.

Ragtime: A style of jazz characterized by elaborately syncopated rhythm in the melody and a steadily accented accompaniment. Ragtime emerged in the 1890s as solo piano adaptations of banjo syncopations, but rapidly grew to become popular with fully orchstrated dance hall bands. A fusion of African rhythms with western harmonies, Ragtime is most often composed as instrumental music. Its greatest composer and performer was Scott Joplin, who was born in Texarkana, Texas. His most famous piece, "Maple Leaf Rag," sold over a million copies of sheet music.

Rainey, Ma: (1886-1939) Born Gertrude Pridgett in Columbus, Georgia, she began performing at an early age, and married William "Pa" Rainey in 1904. Having made a name for herself as a blues singer and comedienne, she began recording songs with Paramount Records, presenting music that incorporated rural as well as "jazz elements" learned while performing with jug bands. One of her most popular songs, See See Rider, became her trademark piece. After her retirement from active performing in 1935, she purchased and operated the Lyric and Airdrome theaters in Rome, Georgia. She later became even more famous as the subject of several poems, essays, and a play by August Wilson, which appeared on Broadway in 1984, called Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. In all of these pieces, she emerges as a powerful articulator of black soul, joy, and survival.

Randolph, A. Philip: (1889-1979) Political activist born in Florida. Randolph moved to New York in 1889 and became an ardent socialist. He founded a new magazine, The Messenger, in 1917, opposed America's involvement in World War I, and organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, in alliance with the American Federation of Labor, in 1925. After ten years of struggle, the Brotherhood was recognized by the Pullman Company, the nation's largest private employer of black workers. Randolph served as President of the Brotherhood until his retirement in 1968. During WWII, his threat to lead a mass march on Washington in 1941 persuaded President Franklin Roosevelt to end job discrimination in the defense industries by Executive Order. He was a co-sponsor with Martin Luther King, Jr., of the 1961 March on Washington. Toward the end of his life, he became a critic of the Black Power Movement, which he thought to be ineffective in its goals and strategies. For teacher-reviewed external web sites on Randolph, click here.

Ray, Charlotte: (1850-1911) The first African-American female lawyer in the United States, Charlotte Ray was of mixed racial ancestry. Her father was the editor of the Colored American and pastor of the Bethesda Congregational Church. Charlotte Ray went to school in Washington D.C. and became a teacher at Howard University. She earned her law degree from Howard in 1872, the second to do so, and was admitted to the bar in the nation's capital which had only recently omitted the rule "male" from their requirements to be a lawyer. She had a difficult time maintaining a private practice and moved to Brooklyn, New York where she again taught school and married.

Ray, Henretta Cordelia: (1849-1916) Being well-born, the daughter of a Congregational minister and younger sister of Charlotte, Henretta Cordella Ray taught for many years in the New York Public Schools at Colored Grammar School Number One, following her graduation from The University of the City of New York in 1891 and the Sauvener School of Languages. She left teaching to pursue a career in writing and poetry, choosing many of the members of her family as characters. Most of her poems were printed in the A.M.E. Review before appearing in the two volumes published in 1893 and 1910. Her poem, Commemoration Ode, was read for the unveiling of the Freedman's Monument in Washington D. C., during the commemoration of the eleventh anniversary of Lincoln's death.

Reconstruction Acts: Four acts passed over President Andrew Johnson's veto in 1867 and 1868, dividing the South into five military districts subject to martial law. To achieve restoration to the Union, southern states were required to convene constitutional conventions (elected by universal male suffrage) and state governments that guaranteed black suffrage and the ratification of the 14th Amendment. Most former Confederate officials were disqualified from holding office. A simple majority of those voting was sufficient for the ratification of the new constitutions, thus offsetting attempts by white voters to boycott the elections.

Red River: This long river flows over 1,222 miles from the Texas panhandle into Arkansas before entering northwestern Louisiana to meet the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers. It gets its name from the rich red clay that colors its waters as it flows through Texas. For many years, the Louisiana portion of the river was all but unnavigable because of fallen trees and logjams. A giant logjam of 160 miles was finally broken up in the mid-1800s. Most of its surrounding country was devoted to cotton in the nineteenth century. It was near this river that the kidnapped free person of color Solomon Northup spent much of his time in slavery working on nearby plantations.

Red Stick Creek: The rebellion of Tecumseh and prophesies of Tenskwatawa (Shawnee leaders in Indiana) inspired a large number of Upper Creek in Alabama and Mississippi to cleanse all traces of European culture from themselves and their land. They threw away tools and killed cattle, pigs, and chickens because they were European in origin. Lower Creek who refused to participate were attacked by these warriors, and, in 1813, civil war broke out in the Creek Confederation. The Red Stick Creek were the war faction of the Upper Creek and received their name from their war emblem, a red stick. On September 9, 1813, the Red Stick Creek attacked Fort Mims, Alabama, killing a large number of Upper Creek and 250 U.S. civilians. The massacre enflamed U.S. public opinion and three militia groups organized and marched from Georgia, east Tennessee, and west Tennessee to fight the Creek War. Andrew Jackson's West Tennessee Militia defeated the Red Stick Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River on March 27, 1814. Over 800 Red Stick Creek died in the battle, and the military power of the Creek Confederation, the strongest of the Five Civilized Tribes, was destroyed forever. Jackson imposed a treaty on the Creek requiring them to give up 20 million acres, constituting half of their land. The Creeks agreed to the treaty, although some of the land belonged to the Seminole. An estimated 2,000 Red Stick Creek fled to Florida and merged into the Seminole tribe. One of the refugees was ten-year-old Osceola.

Red Summer of 1919: A six-month period in 1919, in which 25 cities witnessed the worst episodes of the wave of mob attacks on African Americans and their communities in urban America that had taken place during the first two decades of the 20th century. It was called the Red Summer in reference to the blood that flowed in the streets. Attacks occurred in Tulsa, Oklahoma; small-towns in Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Knoxville, Tennessee; Washington, D. C.; and Omaha, Nebraska. The worst riot hit Chicago--it lasted for five days. Only intervention by the Illinois National Guard brought peace to the city. The riots of 1919 differed from earlier ones, which were characterized by attacks on defenseless black communities. This time, blacks fought back and even went on the offensive. Poet Claude McKay captured the angry mood of America's urban blacks who were fed up with Jim Crow in his highly acclaimed poem, "If We Must Die," published in 1919.

Redemption (Redeemers): A term referring to the period after the end of Reconstruction in the South, when a loose political coalition of southern whites gained political power and attempted to undo the changes brought about by the Civil War. Some historians refer to them as "Redeemers." Once in power, they cut government spending at all levels but especially for public education and the salaries of elected politicians. At the same time, the Redeemers usually supported labor contracts for blacks, poll taxes for voting, and taxes on tools and farm animals. It is generally believed that the "Redemption" period lasted for about 15 years, during which time class and racial tensions heated up to the point of explosion, ushering in political attempts to form new political parties as well as to disfranchise African-American males. Some historians see these Redeemers as a rising class of businessmen identified with the New South, whose policies tended to neglect small farmers, who then rose up against them in the Populist revolt of the 1890s. Other, older historians refer to the political and economic leaders after 1876 as "Bourbons," meaning conservative and often reactionary members of the planter class who wished to restore the values of the antebellum South--similar to the Bourbon royal family that tried to overthrow the legacy of the French Revolution in 19th-century France.

Remond, Sarah Parker: (1826-1894) An abolitionist, Sarah Parker Remond was born to free black parents. She became an agent in the American Anti-Slavery Society because of the prejudice she experienced in Boston and presented lectures in both the United States before the Civil War and in Britain before and during the Civil War. Following the Civil War she returned for a brief stay in the United States before going to Italy to study and practice medicine. In 1877 she married Lazzaro Pintor. She died and is buried in Rome.

Rensselaer County, New York: Located in northeastern New York and initially settled by the Dutch in 1629, the Battle of Bennington was fought here during the American Revolution. Officially founded in 1791, large numbers of New Englanders relocated to the county over the next 20 years. One of those New Englanders was a member of the Northrup family of Rhode Island who brought with him a slave named Mistus. Upon his owner’s death, Mistus was set free and lived his life as a farmer near Minerva, New York. In 1808, the once enslaved Mistus fathered a male child, whom he named Solomon Northrup in honor of the man who had freed him. The story of Solomon Northrup’s kidnapping by slave traders and sale into slavery became one of the most read anti-slavery books published in the 1850s, Twelve Years as a Slave.

Revels, Hirem R.: (1827-1901) In 1870, he became the first African-American U. S. Senator, one of two appointed from Mississippi. Born a free black, Revels had lived in North Carolina, and served as a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal in Baltimore and as a chaplain for an African-American regiment stationed in Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the Civil War. After his term in the U. S. Senate, Revels was named the first president of Alcorn University in Mississippi, a State-supported school for the formerly enslaved people in the region. He also served as Mississippi's Secretary of State. In 1874, he became a Democrat and acquired a plantation near Natchez, Mississippi.

Rice: Oryza sativa and Oryza glaberrimi, were indigenous varieties of rice imported in 1685 from the island of Madagascar to South Carolina. Some historians contend that enslaved Africans first showed white Americans how to cultivate rice. By 1740, rice had become a major staple in the South Carolina farming and slave-based economy.

Robeson, Paul: Actor and outspoken critic of Jim Crow, whose life challenged and defied the racist assumptions and accommodationism of Jim Crow America. Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Robeson became an All-American football player at Rutgers University. After college, he attended Columbia law school and became a singer and actor, achieving great success on Broadway and in films. His lead roles in plays by Eugene O'Neill, as Othello in the longest playing Shakespeare production on Broadway, as well as his popular recordings ("Ballad for Americans," "Old Man River," and numerous African-American spirituals) established him as a giant among American entertainers. Throughout his musical and theatrical career, Robeson expressed outspoken opposition to Jim Crowism in America. He formed close ties with the American Communist Party, criticized President Truman's cold war policies, and suffered the full weight of McCarthy-era hysteria and repression. Black-listed in the 1950s as a dangerous supporter of communism, his career all but ended. The State Department revoked his passport in 1950, and even the NAACP turned against him. He suffered a series of mental breakdowns towards the end of his life and died a broken man. Today, however, Robeson is remembered as one of the greatest figures in African-American history.

Robinson, Jackie: (1919-1972) The first African American to play in major league baseball when he broke the "color line" of segregation in professional sports by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. An aggressive and assertive player who combined the risky moves identified as "tricky plays" in the black leagues with a mastery of hitting, fielding, and running, Robinson brought drama and spirit to the game that made the Dodgers one of America's favorite teams. He also spoke openly and often in defense of integration. His courage in the face of racial taunts, thrown objects, death threats, and hate mail endeared him to black and white Americans who recognized his talent and his dignity. When he died, the Reverend Jesse Jackson eulogized him as a man who daily demonstrated by his playing the right of all Americans to be free. For an essay on Jackie Robinson's 1946 spring training in Jim Crow Florida, click here.

Robinson, Jo Ann (Joanne) Gibson: (1912-1992) The youngest of twelve children born to Owen and Dollie Gibson, Jo Ann Gibson was the first child in her family to graduate from college (Fort Valley College). She was married briefly to Wilbur Robinson and never remarried after their divorce. She taught both high school and college at Alabama State College, became a member of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Women's Political Council of Montgomery. Jo Ann Robinson was one of the active women in supporting the Montgomery Bus Boycott and suffered a great deal of persecution from local authorities because of it. In 1957 she transferred to Grambling College, to teach English, before moving to Los Angeles to teach in the public school system from which she eventually retired.

Roosevelt, Theodore: (1858-1919) Born into a wealthy family in 1858 in New York City, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt became the youngest President of the United States in 1900 with the death of President William McKinley. Known as the "Hero of San Juan Hill", the leader of the Rough Riders, the "Trust-Buster" and for his famous statement: "Speaker softly but carry a big stick," T. Roosevelt was regarded as one of the most aggressive, confident, and environmentally-aware presidents in history. His work with the establishment of the National Parks Service earned him a place, along with Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, on Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. Teddy Roosevelt is also remembered as the builder of the Panama Canal. He was awarded the Noble Peace Prize for his work in mediating the Russo-Japanese War. He left office, after two terms, in 1909 and went on a safari to Africa, only to return and challenge Republican incumbent William Howard Taft by running on the Progressive ticket, affectionately known as the Bull Moose Party. His campaign, however, split the Republican vote, clearing the way for Woodrow Wilson to win the election in 1912. Teddy Roosevelt had a mixed history on race relations. Although he initially acknowledged the role of black soldiers in saving his life in the battle during the Spanish-American War, he later reversed himself and accused several black men of cowardice. And while he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House and frequently consulted with him in the appointment of blacks to federal office, he summarily dismissed three companies of black men from the army in the aftermath of a riot between black soldiers and white townsmen in Brownsville, Texas.

Rush, Gertrude: (1909-1962) The daughter of a Baptist minister, Gertrude Rush was raised in Kansas and attended Des Moines University studying law under her attorney-husband James B. Rush. She was admitted to the Iowa Bar in 1918 following further studies at Drake and LaSalle Universities. Gertrude Rush is known for being the first African-American female lawyer west of the Mississippi River. She was also founder of the Charity League in 1917 and the National Bar Association in 1925.

Rust College: Rust College was established in 1866 by the Freedman's Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The school accepted adults of all ages, as well as children, for instruction in elementary subjects. A year later the first building on the present campus was erected. In 1870, the school was chartered as Shaw University, honoring the Reverend S. O. Shaw, who made a gift of $10,000 to the new institution. In 1882, the name was changed to Rust University, in tribute to Richard S. Rust of Cincinnati, Ohio, Secretary of the Freedman's Aid Society. In 1915, the title was changed to a more realistic name, Rust College. It is now the second oldest private college in Mississippi, the oldest historically black college in the state, and one of the remaining five historically black colleges in America founded before 1867. In 1915, most of its 200 students were in the elementary grades, and its 14 teachers included five white and nine blacks. Five of its faculty were male. Although some attention was paid to industrial and agricultural instruction, the core of the school's curriculum consisted of the liberal arts and college preparatory courses, such as Latin, German, mathematics, English, history, geology, chemistry, music, and pedagogy. Attached to the school was the Elizabeth L. Rust Home for girls, supported by the Woman's Home Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Fifty-five girls boarded at the home in 1917, and most received training in household care as well as cooking and sewing lessons.

Rustin, Bayard: (1912-1987) Born in West Chester Pennsylvania, he became the nation's leading strategist of nonviolent resistance to Jim Crow, serving as a key advisor to A. Philip Randolph and Martin Luther King, Jr. Along with James Farmer, Rustin helped found the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and he refused to serve in WWII on pacifist principles, for which he was jailed for three years. In 1947, he coordinated CORE's 1947 "Journey of Reconciliation," a model for the Freedom Rides of 1961, in which black and white men traveled by bus through the upper South to test new Federal laws prohibiting segregated transportation. He was also a champion of gay liberation, and spent much of his later life fighting homophobia in American society.