Black Code of Mississippi (1865)
Context
In April 1865, after four years of fighting and deprivation, the Civil War ended. The cessation of fighting, however, did not firmly settle the end of their social system in white southerners' minds. The lack of commitment to black freedom in Washington, D.C., and among white southerners meant that former slaves could not easily acquire citizenship. By the conclusion of 1865, Mississippi, abetted by the U.S. president, offered firm evidence that white southerners, while reluctantly granting the abolition of slavery, refused to grant African Americans equality before the law.
An assassin took the life of President Abraham Lincoln within days of the war's end. Lincoln's generous plan for ensuring the return of the southern states to the Union fell into the hands of his successor, Andrew Johnson. The new president, a native of east Tennessee, significantly modified Lincoln's plan for Reconstruction by adding provisions intended to punish the elite planters of the South,...
