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 These codes were all repealed in 1866 when Reconstruction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.