African Americans in Oklahoma Before 1954
Glossary
advocate: to publicly support a policy or cause.
alumnae: a female graduate or former student of a school, university, or organization.
bar exam: test required for individuals who want to practice law.
civic: relating to a citizen, a city, or the community.
civilian: someone who is not in the military.
coerce: forcing someone to do something through violence or threats.
commercial: selling goods and services for a profit.
communally: shared by members of a group.
confrontation: an intense, face-to-face disagreement.
congregant: a member of a religious institution.
correspondence: letters, email, or messages.
delegation: a small group that represents the views of a larger group.
denomination: a kind of religious group that is independent of other groups.
dense: crowded.
discrimination: treating groups differently.
diversified: including many different kinds of operations or products.
drover: worker who herds livestock.
editorial: a type of news communication that strongly shares an opinion.
emancipation: the act or process of freeing someone from the control of another.
emergency legislation: a type of bill that, if passed into law, will go into effect immediately.
entrepreneur: a person who starts business ventures.
executive order: a directive by a governor or the president that has the force of law.
expulsion: kicked out of a group.
extradite: a legal process that brings a person who has left a place back to that location to face trial.
fraternal: like a brother.
Freedmen: (capitalized) individuals formerly enslaved by a member of the Five Tribes.
freedmen: formerly enslaved by individuals not connected to the Five Tribes.
generalization: a statement that, based on evidence, is likely true.
grandfather clause: a type of rule that exempts some people based on some characteristic but applies to everyone else.
guardian: a person who handles the affairs of another individual and is legally responsible for them.
HBCU: historically Black college or university.
illiteracy: being unable to read or write.
incentive: a positive consequence that motivates behavior.
incitement: provoking unlawful behavior.
incompetent: unable to manage oneself or one’s own affairs.
indicted: formally accused of a serious crime.
infant mortality: the measurement of how many children die before they reach the age of five in a place.
integrated: mixed together.
integrity: a person who has strong moral principles that can’t be changed.
intercollegiate: activities involving more than one college or university.
Jim Crow Laws: state or local ordinances, which created the system of racial segregation that existed throughout much of the United States from the end of Reconstruction to the 1960s.
lease: paying to use someone else’s property.
missionaries: people who work to convince others to join a particular religion.
mutual aid: voluntary sharing of resources between a group of people.
orator: an excellent public speaker.
ordinance: a rule passed at a municipal level that has the force of law.
party appointments: when individuals are appointment to a position by a person whom they helped get elected.
patronize: help or support.
penny bank: a bank that specializes in small deposits and small loans.
philanthropist: a person that gives large sums of money to help people.
posthumous: after death.
precedent: a decision by a court that causes other, similar cases to be decided in the same way.
prestigious: having a high status.
prominent: important, well-known.
prosecute: to conduct a criminal case against someone.
racial identity: what race(s) a person considers themselves.
racist: a person who believes a particular racial group is better or worse than others.
resolution: the published beliefs of a group.
restrictive covenant: a clause in a legal agreement that prevents a person from doing something they could usually do with their own property.
salvaged: taken from trash and reused.
segregation: to separate.
sharecropping: an agreement that allows a landless farmer to use the land owned by someone else by paying rent with the crop grown on the land.
social historian: someone that studies everyday life.
sparsely: not crowded.
sue: to use the court system to receive compensation for a harm done.
sundown town: a community that threatens violence toward a visitor of a different race if they remain after dark.
truck farmer: a farmer that grows crops to sell in a local urban area.
unconstitutional: a law or policy that violates the agreement in the Constitution; if something is unconstitutional, it is not allowed in the United States.
urban renewal: a policy that lasted from the 1950s to 1970s and sought to revitalize urban areas; it is considered a failed policy that unfairly targeted Black communities for destruction.
voting restrictions: rules that limit, sometimes severely, who is allowed to vote.
ward: a person who has a guardian.
