SAQs for APUSH Topic 6.4 — The “New South”

Five questions designed to help students review for the annual exam and that relate to a slogan in the history of the American South after the American Civil War.

1. Between 1865–1898, some Southern leaders called for a “New South. In other words, a southern society that was willing to reject the economy and traditions of the Old South and the slavery-based plantation system of the antebellum period. What does the term “antebellum period” refer to? Click here for thirty questions that relate to the culture, practices, traditions, customs, and beliefs of the Old South.
2. Despite the call for a New South, agriculture continued to be the primary economic activity in the South between 1865–1877. What crop was grown in the South more than any other during this period of time?
3. Despite the call for a New South, sharecropping and tenant farming came into wide use between 1865–1877. What is sharecropping? What is tenant farming? What effect did sharecropping and tenant farming have on many recently freed slaves? Which of the Reconstruction Era promises would many African American Civil Rights activists claim in the post World War II years was still going unfilled and that related to sharecropping and tenant farming?
4. Name and briefly describe a law passed during the African American Civil Rights Movement that would in essence create a New South.
5. Name and briefly describe a U.S. Supreme Court decision that was issued during the African American Civil Rights Movement that would in essence create a New South.