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Black Codes
Legislaters in the Southern states had passed laws called Black Codes. These laws were designed to help the newly freed African Americans. Some of the codes made it illegal for African Americans to own or rent farms, Or some laws even allowed officials to fine or even arrest African Americans who didn't have jobs. These laws allowed white employers to take advantage or African American workers. African Americans barely had freedom after slavery. Whites' were allowed to take advantage of them. -
Reconstruction Act 1/2
Ten of the former Confederate states had not ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. In response, Congress passed The First Reconstruction Act. This law required that those states form new governments. The Second Reconstruction Act empowered the army to register voters in each district and to help organize state constitutional conventions. -
The 14th Amendment
The Fourteenth Amendment stated that: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the juristdiction thereof, all citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." This language protected the citizenship extended to African Americans by the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It garunteed that citizenship could not later be taken away by passing another law. -
15th Amendment
This amendment garunteed that state and federal governments could not deny the right to vote to any male citizen because of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
This amendment allows all men to vote no matter what they are. -
Civil Rights Act of 1886
This law gave the fedral governement power to get involved in state affairs to protect African Americans' rights. Also, it granted citizenship to Africa Americans. This act was meant to counter the Supreme Court decision in the 1857 case Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Supreme Court ruled that Afriacn Americans' were not citizens. African Americans were still not considered citizens and had little to no freedom.
