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Freedmen In The Mississippi Vagrant Law

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After the Civil War, slaves were now getting ready to experience a new life as freedmen. What most of the freedmen were not expecting, was that this transition would not be that different than the life they were already living before as slaves. The South was not ready to accept the fact that freedmen were equal to whites, and this would affect the way freedmen lived and how they were treated. Freedmen had new laws to protect them and to make them equal among the whites. By law freedmen were now allowed to vote, issued equal protection of the laws, and they were granted citizenship, but would this be the reality that freedmen would experience in the South? During the time of Reconstruction, freedmen began to move to more urban environments. …show more content…

This law states that “any freedman with no lawful employment or found unlawfully acting together, and all whites assembling themselves with the freedmen on terms of equality, or living in adultery with freed women, shall be named vagrants and be fined a sum of money and imprisoned at the discretion of the court (544).” The Vagrant Law paints a picture of separation between whites and blacks. If freedmen could not pay the fine (which almost all freedmen could not) “the freedmen would be hired out to a person until the freedman could pay off the fine at all costs (544).” With this law, white leaders could easily bring freedmen back into a different form of slavery because the freedmen did not have a choice. This goes back to the 14th Amendment of the United States. The 14th Amendment states that “anyone born or naturalized in the United States was granted citizenship and prohibited any state from allowing any citizen to be denied civil rights and equal protection of the law (538).” All laws created in the South were completely illegal, but without the proper government supporters, these laws would be allowed in the South. The Mississippi Vagrant Law violates the 14th Amendment and was just another form of black codes and segregation between blacks and

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