Black Codes

Your task, if you choose to accept it, is to read the section assigned to you. With the essential question and out learning targets in mind read and choose the most important word or phrase from your selection. Make sure you have a reason for your choice. 

Keep these in mind:  

• Does racial equality depend on government action?

• I can identify black codes, what they were and what their purpose was. 

• I can create an argument that supports my choice for a most important word or phrase. 

READING NUMBER 1

Black Codes and Pig Laws

Immediately after the Civil War ended, Southern states enacted "black codes" that allowed African Americans certain rights, such as legalized marriage, ownership of property, and limited access to the courts, but denied them the rights to testify against whites, to serve on juries or in state militias, vote, or start a job without the approval of the previous employer. These codes were all repealed in 1866 when Reconstruction began.

But after the failure of Reconstruction in 1877, and the removal of black men from political offices, Southern states again enacted a series of laws intended to circumscribe the lives of African Americans.  Harsh contract laws penalized anyone attempting to leave a job before an advance had been worked off. “Pig Laws” unfairly penalized poor African Americans for crimes such as stealing a farm animal. And vagrancy statutes made it a crime to be unemployed.  Many misdemeanors or trivial offenses were treated as felonies, with harsh sentences and fines. 

The Pig Laws stayed on the books for decades, and were expanded with even more discriminatory laws once the Jim Crow era began.

READING NUMBER 2

Passage of the Black Codes

Even as former slaves fought to assert their independence and gain economic autonomy during the earliest years of Reconstruction, white landowners acted to control the labor force through a system similar to the one that had existed during slavery.

To that end, in late 1865, Mississippi and South Carolina enacted the first black codes. Mississippi’s law required blacks to have written evidence of employment for the coming year each January; if they left before the end of the contract, they would be forced to forfeit earlier wages and were subject to arrest.

In South Carolina, a law prohibited blacks from holding any occupation other than farmer or servant unless they paid an annual tax of $10 to $100. This provision hit free blacks already living in Charleston and former slave artisans especially hard. In both states, blacks were given heavy penalties for vagrancy, including forced plantation labor in some cases.

READING NUMBER 3

Limits on Black Freedom

Under Johnson’s Reconstruction policies, nearly all the southern states would enact their own black codes in 1865 and 1866. While the codes granted certain freedoms to African Americans—including the right to buy and own property, marry, make contracts and testify in court (only in cases involving people of their own race)—their primary purpose was to restrict blacks’ labor and activity.

Some states limited the type of property that blacks could own, while virtually all the former Confederate states passed strict vagrancy and labor contract laws, as well as so-called “anti-enticement” measures designed to punish anyone who offered higher wages to a black laborer already under contract.

Passed by a political system in which blacks effectively had no voice, the black codes were enforced by all-white police and state militia forces—often made up of Confederate veterans of the Civil War—across the South.

READING NUMBER 4

Impact of the Black Codes

The restrictive nature of the codes and widespread black resistance to their enforcement enraged many in the North, who argued that the codes violated the fundamental principles of free labor ideology.

After passing the Civil Rights Act (over Johnson’s veto), Republicans in Congress effectively took control of Reconstruction. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 required southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment—which granted “equal protection” of the Constitution to former slaves—and enact universal male suffrage before they could rejoin the Union.

The 15th Amendment, adopted in 1870, guaranteed that a citizen’s right to vote would not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” During this period of Radical Reconstruction (1867-1877), blacks won election to southern state governments and even to the U.S. Congress.

READING NUMBER 5

As indicated by the passage of the black codes, however, white southerners showed a steadfast commitment to ensuring their supremacy and the survival of plantation agriculture in the postwar years. Support for Reconstruction policies waned after the early 1870s, undermined by the violence of white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

By 1877, when the last federal soldiers left the South and Reconstruction drew to a close, blacks had seen little improvement in their economic and social status, and the vigorous efforts of white supremacist forces throughout the region had undone the political gains they had made. Discrimination would continue in America with the rise of Jim Crow laws, but would inspire the Civil Rights Movement to come.

READING NUMBER 6

Restriction on Free Blacks

Black codes had a negative impact on everything from the daily life of African Americans to even court cases and legal proceedings. African Americans could not testify in court in cases that involved those of their own race. In addition, they could not vote or participate in any legal proceedings. Further they could not own a home or property or even rent a place of residency.

Beyond that, any type of speech or conversation by blacks that was deemed a threat to white society or individuals was considered criminal behavior. Anyone found guilty of actions considered to be seditious had to pay a hefty fine. In addition, blacks could not buy firearms and they were penalized if they violated curfew. The Black Codes became more and more restrictive for African Americans in an effort to perpetuate a white supremacist society that kept blacks in their place.

The primary effect this had on blacks during reconstruction is that it infringed on their ability to be full American citizens, and their human-ness; the Black Codes were dehumanizing. The laws enacted represented a continuation of slave codes that relegated blacks to non-human status during antebellum times.

READING NUMBER 7

The northern public was largely critical of Black Codes, as they recognized the laws as an attempt by the south to maintain the southern status quo, and keep blacks within the position of bondsmen. The 1866 elections proved a major blow for Black Codes. The Republicans gained large majorities during the election. As a result they implemented Marshall Law in the south. New elections were held and free blacks were allowed to vote along with poor whites, and the new government repealed all Black Codes. In 1868 The 14th Amendment was adopted which granted blacks equal protection and ensured that southerners could not resurrect Black Codes. However, similar laws would be implemented in the south during the twentieth century known as Jim Crow laws, a manifestation of earlier Black Codes. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 finally brought an end to over two hundred years of laws that denied equal citizenship to African Americans.