The Reconstruction period in the United States of America is known for the establishment of novel legislation and laws. Mississippi Black Codes became the first regulatory document designed for African Americans that, even though it formed certain rules for the population, mostly prohibited various constitutional rights. The Codes were primarily created to officially settle the lawful availability of cheap labor after the demolishment of slavery. The following essay will identify and discuss the few freedoms granted to the African Americans by the Mississippi Black Codes and further elaborate on the specific restriction that powered the country’s racism.
The Mississippi Black Codes is known for the strict limitations given to the Black community after the abolishment of slavery. Nevertheless, these newly established codes granted the color community actual freedoms that finally made them a part of American society. The first section of the Black Codes stated: “all freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes may sue and be sued, implead and be impleaded in all the courts of law and equity of this state, and may acquire personal property and chooses in action, and may dispose of the same.” Therefore, African Americans gained legal rights in court and, most importantly, the right to own property.
Despite the availability of such freedoms, little people of color could afford to buy a house due to lack of finances, subsequently being forced to live at their previous slave-owners. The right to implead in the court was only allowed in cases involving people of their own race. Hence, even though, at first sight, this section was granting individual freedoms to African Americans, significant limitations were creating various restrictions on the freedoms of this community.
With the establishment of the Black Codes, the ex-slaves were granted permission to marry. Section 2 of the Black Codes testifies: “all freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes may intermarry with each other, in the same manner, and under the same regulations that are provided by law for white persons.” The fundamental social right was now available to all people of color, allowing them to create their own families. However, interracial marriages with white people still were not allowed.
Another legal opportunity that African Americans gained was to make contacts with the employers, created to ensure they were not manipulated to work for several contractors. This regulation is written in Section 6 of the Mississippi Black Codes: “all contracts for labor made with freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes for a longer period than one month shall be in writing and in duplicate, attested and read… by a beat, city or county officers, or two disinterested white persons of the country in which the labor is to be performed.” Such ordinance provided for constant employment, which most free people found at their previous masters. Even after the ability to sign contracts, its violations entailed the cruel beatings or arrests for vagrancy, which out-ruled the so-called freedoms.
Mississippi Black Codes indeed granted several privileges to the colored community of the United States, created under the pretext of freedom. However, most of the codes implied restrictive laws that significantly limited their rights compared to white people. The primary goal of this document was to conform the African Americans to the obligatory work as a cheap labor force under pretenses of independence.
Black Codes created various restrictions to the labor rights the colored community-acquired, making the fundamental freedoms barely available to people. Section 7 of the Black Codes states: “Every civil officer shall, and every person may arrest and carry back to his or her legal employer any freedman, free Negro, or mulatto who shall have quit the service of his or her employer before the expiration of his or her term of service without good cause.” This passage deprives so-called freedmen to quit their job before the expiration of a contract, allowing their masters to manipulate this minority to do the despicable work.
Many sections of the Black Codes subjected the colored community to arrests and violence for the inability or refusal to work. Even under the pretense of the contracts and several freedoms, such limitations remained this community as slaves, only under the false autonomy laws. Moreover, numerous children, especially orphans, became a subject of hard manual labor, not receiving any profit from the white supremacy. Refusal by any Black man to sign an employment contract entitled the use of punishment by the government for the inability to conform to the new social norms.
Restrictions and laws written in the southern Black Codes were extending racist doctrines of pre-Civil War slavery, making people of color free only on paper. In reality, ex-slaves still had to work for rich white masters, deprived of fundamental freedoms and rights, treated similar to the times of slavery with no ability to leave the residence premises or receive guests. The Black Codes explicitly state the overruling of the whites, which can be compared by the offenses applied to each race.
On the one hand, African-Americans faced brutal beatings and arrests for the unwillingness to work for a bad employer or a desire to quit working for a certain master2. On the other side, white supremacy received a fine for human trafficking – selling of Black men from one to another, stating in section 9: “he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction, shall be fined not less than twenty-five dollars and not more than two hundred dollars and the costs.” Such treatment is explicit racism in support of continual slavery, even in a lighter form than before the Civil War.
The Southern Black Codes, in addition to extending the racist influence, also deprived people of color of constitutional freedoms granted to each citizen of the United States of America. According to the First Amendment, each American has the right to speech, which implies a free expression of opinions and criticism towards people and the government. Even though people of color were gaining the right to work, they could not express their negative attitude to the employer, otherwise facing physical punishment.
In addition, the freedom of petition was implied in the documents, thus, denied in real life. In the case of petitioning against the employer and change of the workplace, African-Americans were deprived of the ability to stand up to their supervisors in court and receive justice. These people could not refrain from working for a cruel person, who could treat their employees like slaves until the end date on the contract, which in many cases meant months to come.
Moreover, black people were deprived of the freedom to bear arms, guaranteed by the constitution. The Black Codes banned them from possessing most firearms, therefore withholding their opportunity to fight back in case of danger. The inability to protect oneself, at times when the supremacy had access to the guns, is highly unjust, putting the lives of the colored community in jeopardy, taking into consideration the lack of support from the government.
The freedom to marry any person was also restricted among the freedman. According to the Black codes, people of color could only step into marriage with a person of the same race. Prohibition of interracial marriages applied similar harsh punishments to both lovers in case of being identified. As a result, such conditions of the Black Codes denied the 9th Amendment of the legal freedom of Americans to marry and raise a family of their own.
Not only African-Americans could not change their place of employment under the Black Codes; they also had low chances of legally traveling to other states. The freedom to travel was denied to black people, as coming into the new state was only allowed with first posting a bond for “good behavior.” Thus, most of the freedoms stated by the Amendments were not available to the people of color in America due to the Black Codes.
To conclude, the Southern Black Codes came into the act as the result of the Emancipation as a new way of controlling the freed slaves. Even though these regulations gave people of color some legal rights and permission, they were still highly restrictive. In many ways, the Black Codes were extending the racist doctrines of the pre-Civil War period, and despite giving people freedom on paper, did not seem to permit anything close to it in real life. Therefore, the Southern racially discriminatory Black Codes were created to retain as many elements of slavery as possible.