Black Codes

Black Codes were state and local laws enacted after the Civil War to restrict Black people’s freedom, movement, and labor choices, especially in the former Confederacy.

Vagrancy laws: Laws that penalize people for lacking recognized work, housing, or other prescribed status. Black Codes used vagrancy charges to compel unemployed Black people into labor contracts.
Emancipation Proclamation: Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 order declaring enslaved people free in designated areas rebelling against the United States. It announced wartime emancipation, while Black Codes later constrained freedom in the postwar South.
Civil Rights Act of 1866: A federal law granting citizenship and equal civil rights to people born in the United States, except members of tribal nations. Congress passed it to counter discriminatory state laws, including Black Codes.
Chattel slavery in the United States: A system that treated enslaved people as property and compelled their labor across generations. Black Codes restricted freedom after slavery’s formal abolition but did not legally recreate ownership of people.
Convict leasing: A system in which governments leased incarcerated people to private employers for labor. Arrests under Black Codes supplied prisoners to labor systems that replaced slavery.
Thirteenth Amendment: The 1865 constitutional amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime. Its ratification ended legal slavery, prompting state efforts to control Black labor by other means.
Fourteenth Amendment: The constitutional amendment establishing birthright citizenship and requiring states to provide equal protection and due process. It constitutionalized protections against state laws that denied Black people equal civil status.
Civil Rights Act of 1875: A federal law prohibiting racial discrimination in public accommodations and jury service. It shows a later federal effort to secure civil rights against discriminatory state practices.
Apprenticeship laws: Laws placing minors under an employer or guardian who controls their work and training. Some Southern laws bound Black children to former enslavers or other employers.
Presidential Reconstruction: The post–Civil War restoration policy pursued under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. Lenient restoration let former Confederate states enact restrictive laws before Congress intervened.

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