How the Black Codes Limited African American Progress After the Civil War
By NADRA KAREEM NITTLE
The black codes effectively continued enslavement for African Americans by restricting their rights and exploiting their labor.
When slavery ended in the United States, freedom still eluded African Americans who were contending with the repressive set of laws known as the black codes. Widely enacted throughout the South following the Civil War—a period called Reconstruction—these laws both limited the rights of Black people and exploited them as a labor source.
In fact, life after bondage didn’t differ much from life during bondage for the African Americans subjected to the black codes. This was by design, as slavery had been a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and the former Confederate states sought a way to continue this system of subjugation.
“They may have lost the war, but they’re not going to lose power civically and socially,” says M. Keith Claybrook Jr., an assistant professor in the Department of Africana Studies at California State University, Long Beach. “So, the black codes were an attempt to restrict and limit freedom.”
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Posted By: Dea. Ron Gray Sr.
Monday, March 7th 2022 at 12:54PM
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