The Black Codes – Slavery 1.1 – Black History Month

We must never forget the ugly abuses of slavery or its legacy effects on African Americans to this day. However, it is vitally important that all people, regardless of their race or color, realize that slavery was never about race or color.  The people of West Africa just happened to be the most profitably exploitable people the European slave traders could capture and sell.  Slavery wasn’t racially motivated. It was profit motivated. Slavery was always about exploiting exploitable human beings.

“There is no greater injustice than to wring your profits from the sweat of another man’s brow.”
— Abraham Lincoln

After the 13th Amendment ended the legality of slavery, and after Lincoln was replaced by the racist president Andrew Johnson (a slave owner before the war), southern states began adopting “Black Codes”.  The codes were a kind of “Bill of Less Rights” designed as work-arounds to the constitutional abolishment of slavery. They acknowledged that black people could no longer be considered chattel property (like livestock), but they also defined how black people’s rights were less than white people’s.  The Black Codes were designed to maximize the continued exploitability of black people. Instead of the iron chains of slavery 1.0, the codes were the legal chains of slavery 1.1.

Before continuing to an overview of the Black Codes, take a moment to consider what they represented. They were about legally protecting the rights of exploiters to exploit people. In that sense, the greatest enduring tragedy of slavery in this country, is that the slavers – the exploiters of humans – won the civil war.  The 13th Amendment prohibited them from owning slaves, but it did nothing to stop them from creating new legal ways to exploit black people (and, today, people of all colors).  The Black Codes of 1865 are a perfect example of the kinds of “legalized protection of exploitation” that govern the economy and politics of the United States today.

“The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few.”
– Grover Cleveland

BLACK CODES:

• Restricted Labor: Black Codes often required former slaves to sign labor contracts, essentially forcing them back into a system resembling indentured servitude.
  • Example: “All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes shall have the right to make and enforce contracts… to have full remedy, both civil and criminal, for the enforcement of such contracts…” (Mississippi Black Code, 1865)
• Restricted Movement: Vagrancy laws criminalized unemployment, allowing authorities to arrest Black people without jobs and force them into unpaid labor.
  • Example: “All freedmen, free negroes, and mulattoes, over the age of eighteen years found on the second day of January, 1866, without a lawful employment in some honest and lawful business, or having no property sufficient for their own and family’s support, shall be deemed vagrants…” (Mississippi Black Code, 1865)
• Restricted Rights: Black Codes denied African Americans basic civil rights, such as the right to vote, serve on juries, or testify in court against white people.
  • Example: “No freedman, free negro, or mulatto shall intermarry with any white person; and any person who shall so intermarry shall be punished as provided by law for felonious assaults.” (Mississippi Black Code, 1865)
• Restricted Property Ownership: Black Codes often placed restrictions on land ownership by African Americans, hindering their economic independence.
  • Example: “No freedman, free negro, or mulatto shall be permitted to rent or lease any house or building within the limits of any city, town, or village, without the written consent and approval of the mayor or intendant of such city, town, or village.” (South Carolina Black Code, 1865)
• Restricted Assembly: Black Codes often restricted the right of African Americans to assemble, limiting their ability to organize politically or socially.
  • Example: “All assemblages of negroes for the purpose of amusement or instruction shall be unlawful, unless duly authorized by the corporate authorities of the city or town where such assemblage may take place, and shall be attended by a white man.” (South Carolina Black Code, 1865)

The great con that pervades to this day is that this was about race and color. What the Chinese laborers who built the railroads had in common with the Africans who slaved on plantations was their exploitability. When we engage this unethical, immoral, ugliness as if it’s about race we let the real evil pass invisibly by us. It was and is about human predation and parasitism – about a culture of people who have for centuries insidiously protected their legal rights to manipulate people’s economic and voting behaviors into the service of their profit and power. They have come along way from needing slaves on plantations. Today they have hundreds of millions of people whose behaviors they can exploit from the Whitehouse.

Further…

For an excellent overview of this time in history see: The Great Courses: The US Constitution through History – E12: The Fourteenth Amendment and Freedom’s Meaning  –   (also via Amazon)

And…

Black History	Legalized Exploitation
Literacy Learning: The Fulcrum of Civil Rights	Juneteenth: What if the Slavers had Nukes?
A Collection in Honor of MLK	The Predatory Parasitism Trumping Democracy
Black American Heroines	Predatory Misinformation
Frederick Douglas: An American Slave	Predatory States of America
The Souls of Black Folk	Mass Scale Economic Predation