Keith Claybrook Jr., an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach’s Department of Africana Studies.
“They may have lost the war, but they’re not going to lose power civically and socially,” says M. This was intentional, as slavery had been a multibillion-dollar enterprise, and the former Confederate states sought a way to keep this system of subjugation going. In fact, for African Americans enslaved to the Black Codes, life after enslavement was not very different from life during enslavement. Following the Civil War, during the period known as Reconstruction, these laws limited Black people’s rights and exploited them as a labor source. When slavery was abolished in the United States, freedom remained elusive for African Americans who were subjected to the repressive set of laws known as the Black Codes. How the Black Codes Restricted African American Advancement after the Civil War Black people were subjected to harsh penalties for vagrancy in both states, including forced plantation labor in some cases.
#Groups barred from taking oath of loyalty 1865 free#
This provision was especially harsh on free Black people already living in Charleston and former slave artisans.
In South Carolina, an act prohibited Black people from working in any profession other than agriculture or as slaves unless they paid an annual tax of $10 to $100. Every January, the Mississippi act required Black individuals to have written proof of income if they left before the conclusion of the contract, they were forced to forfeit prior earnings and were imprisoned. In late 1865, South Carolina and Mississippi implemented the first Black code. Adoption of the Black CodesĮven as formerly enslaved people started fighting for their independence and economic independence during the early years of Reconstruction, white landowners used a system similar to that of slavery to control the labor force. Johnson, a former Tennessee senator who remained loyal to the Union during the war, was a fervent defender of states’ rights and believed the federal government had no influence in state-level concerns such as voting rules.įormer Confederate states were expected to uphold the end of slavery (as made official by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution), confess loyalty to the Union, and pay off their war debt under the Reconstruction policies, which began in May 1865.Īside from those restrictions, states and their ruling classes-traditionally run by white planters-were given relatively complete freedom in rebuilding their governments.
He was assassinated a few days later, and his successor, Andrew Johnson, would preside over the start of Reconstruction.ĭid you know that? In the years following Reconstruction, the South reinstituted many of the provisions of the Black Codes under the guise of “Jim Crow laws.” These remained in place for nearly a century before being repealed with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. A Union victory would mean a revolution in the South, where slavery had overtaken political, economic, and social life in the antebellum period.Īs the war came to an end in April 1865, Lincoln shocked many by advocating limited suffrage for African Americans in the South.
When President Abraham Lincoln announced the anticipated passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in early 1863, the stakes of the Civil War shifted substantially.
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