The end of the Civil War marked the end of slavery for 4 million black Southerners. But the war also left them landless and with little money to support themselves. White Southerners, seeking to control the freedmen or former slaves, devised special state law codes. These laws were known as The Southern “Black Codes”
To understand the Black Codes, we need to go back to the end of the Civil War. With the Confederacy defeated, and slavery abolished, millions of African Americans were suddenly free from bondage. But freedom alone was not enough to guarantee their rights and equality. The former slave-owning states in the South were determined to maintain white supremacy and prevent black Americans from gaining political, economic, and social power.
Enter the Black Codes. These state laws aimed to control and restrict the behavior of newly freed slaves. The Black Codes varied from state to state, but they shared a common purpose: to enforce a system of racial segregation and subordination. They were designed to limit the rights of black Americans, such as the right to vote, own property, testify in court, or even move freely.
In this video, we’re going to dive into the dark history of The Black Codes and racial segregation that continues to remain a stain in the history of the United States.
After the end of the Civil War, the United States was left in a state of turmoil. The Southern states were devastated, and the country as a whole was struggling to recover. The newly freed Black Americans were in a precarious position, as they were suddenly thrust into a world that was hostile and unwelcoming.
Five days after the Civil War ended, President Abraham Lincoln was shot. He died on April 15, 1865, and Vice President Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency. The task of reuniting the nation fell on his shoulders. A Southerner, Johnson favored readmitting the Southern states as quickly as possible into the Union. He appointed military governors who held complete power in the former Confederate states until new civilian governments could be organized.
Little thought had been given to the needs of the newly emancipated slaves. Shortly before the end of the war, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau. It furnished food and medical aid to the former slaves. It also established schools for the freedmen. By 1870, a quarter million black children and adults attended more than 4,000 of these schools in the South.
The Freedmen’s Bureau also helped the former slaves in the workplace. It tried to make sure that the former slaves received fair wages and freely chose their employers. The bureau created special courts to settle disputes between black workers and their white employers. It could also intervene in other cases that threatened the rights of freedmen.
White Southerners resented being ruled by Union military governors and Freedmen’s Bureau officials. They sought to restore self-rule. During the summer and fall of 1865, most of the old Confederate states held constitutional conventions. President Johnson’s reconstruction plan permitted only white persons to vote for convention delegates or to participate in the framing of the new state governments. Not surprisingly, none of the state conventions considered extending the right to vote to the freedmen. South Carolina’s provisional governor declared at his state constitutional convention that “this is a white man’s government.”
By the end of the year, most of the South had held elections under the new state constitutions. Often, ex-Confederate leaders won elections for state government offices and for U.S. Congress.
The newly formed state legislatures quickly authorized many needed public projects and the taxes to pay for them. Among these projects was the creation, for the first time in the South, of free public education. But the public schools excluded black children.
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