1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:04,320 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio, 2 00:00:06,600 --> 00:00:11,240 Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff. Lauren Vogelbaum here. On April ninth, eighteen 3 00:00:11,320 --> 00:00:15,280 Speaker 1: sixty five, the long and bloody American Civil War finally 4 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:18,759 Speaker 1: came to an end. It had already been two years 5 00:00:18,880 --> 00:00:23,800 Speaker 1: since President Abraham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, but after 6 00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:27,920 Speaker 1: the Confederacy's surrender, words spread, if slowly, to the more 7 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:32,000 Speaker 1: than four million formerly enslaved black men, women, and children 8 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:37,760 Speaker 1: that they were truly and officially free. White plantation owners, however, 9 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,720 Speaker 1: in league with Southern lawmakers and northern corporations, had other ideas. 10 00:00:43,159 --> 00:00:47,320 Speaker 1: Starting with Mississippi and South Carolina, all white state legislatures 11 00:00:47,400 --> 00:00:50,920 Speaker 1: passed a series of laws called the Black Codes, intent 12 00:00:51,080 --> 00:00:56,160 Speaker 1: on re enslaving people by essentially criminalizing being black. For 13 00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:58,680 Speaker 1: the article this episode is based on how Stuff Work, 14 00:00:58,760 --> 00:01:02,040 Speaker 1: spoke with T. Dion Bailey, a history professor at Colgate 15 00:01:02,120 --> 00:01:06,680 Speaker 1: University who specializes in African American women's history and mass incarceration. 16 00:01:07,640 --> 00:01:11,000 Speaker 1: She explained, White Southerners have a clear sense of how 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:13,479 Speaker 1: they want to restructure their society after the Civil War, 18 00:01:13,920 --> 00:01:15,800 Speaker 1: and they're going to make sure that they do that 19 00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:20,360 Speaker 1: through these legal and extra legal means. The Black Codes, 20 00:01:20,480 --> 00:01:24,080 Speaker 1: enacted in late eighteen sixty five and early eighteen sixty six, 21 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:27,720 Speaker 1: were devised to keep freed people in the South legally 22 00:01:27,760 --> 00:01:33,280 Speaker 1: bound to plantations. With real emancipation, newly freed black people 23 00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,040 Speaker 1: could strike out on their own, farming their own land 24 00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:39,720 Speaker 1: or applying a trade as a skilled artisan. The greatest 25 00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:43,480 Speaker 1: fear of Southern cotton growers and their northern manufacturing partners 26 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:46,360 Speaker 1: was that with the end of slavery, they would lose 27 00:01:46,400 --> 00:01:49,720 Speaker 1: access to the cheap or free and plentiful labor that 28 00:01:49,800 --> 00:01:53,960 Speaker 1: had made cotton a cash crop. The result was what 29 00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:58,200 Speaker 1: journalist Douglas Blackman called slavery by another name, which is 30 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:01,200 Speaker 1: the title of his two thousand eight book, namely, the 31 00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:05,320 Speaker 1: widespread practice of free black men and women unjustly imprisoned 32 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:09,000 Speaker 1: and then auctioned off to plantations and corporations to work 33 00:02:09,040 --> 00:02:14,800 Speaker 1: off their fines. Vagrancy laws were common in the nineteenth century, 34 00:02:15,160 --> 00:02:19,079 Speaker 1: giving local sheriffs the authority to arrest vagrants who were unemployed, 35 00:02:19,200 --> 00:02:21,720 Speaker 1: hanging out on the street and potentially looking for trouble. 36 00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:25,440 Speaker 1: But the Black Codes in states like Mississippi and South 37 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:29,239 Speaker 1: Carolina created a whole new category of vagrancy that only 38 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:34,080 Speaker 1: applied to black people. Bailey said, after the Civil War, 39 00:02:34,280 --> 00:02:37,760 Speaker 1: the South was destroyed, there was no infrastructure left. You 40 00:02:37,919 --> 00:02:40,760 Speaker 1: have poor whites and newly freed blacks, and a lot 41 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:44,480 Speaker 1: of people didn't have jobs. But these vagrancy laws specifically 42 00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:50,239 Speaker 1: attacked African Americans. According to these codes, any black person 43 00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:53,040 Speaker 1: who didn't have a work contract as a servant for 44 00:02:53,120 --> 00:02:57,400 Speaker 1: a white master could be arrested for vagrancy. That meant 45 00:02:57,480 --> 00:03:00,639 Speaker 1: that no black person could farm for themselves or work 46 00:03:00,680 --> 00:03:04,760 Speaker 1: independently as a blacksmith or carpenter. They had to work 47 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:07,639 Speaker 1: for a white person, often the very same person who 48 00:03:07,680 --> 00:03:12,840 Speaker 1: formerly enslaved them, or go to jail. Poor white people, 49 00:03:12,919 --> 00:03:15,280 Speaker 1: on the other hand, might be charged with the vagrancy, 50 00:03:15,520 --> 00:03:19,360 Speaker 1: but the court's customarily waived any fines, hard labor, or 51 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:23,839 Speaker 1: other punishments. But a black person arrested for vagrancy under 52 00:03:23,880 --> 00:03:26,760 Speaker 1: the Black Codes would enter a cycle of forced labor 53 00:03:26,919 --> 00:03:30,000 Speaker 1: from which there was little hope of escape. At first, 54 00:03:30,040 --> 00:03:32,240 Speaker 1: they would be hit with a fine so exorbitant that 55 00:03:32,280 --> 00:03:34,920 Speaker 1: they'd never be able to pay it. Then they'd be 56 00:03:35,000 --> 00:03:38,120 Speaker 1: hired out to a planter who would pay the vagrants 57 00:03:38,120 --> 00:03:41,960 Speaker 1: wages directly to the state. Once a black person was 58 00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:45,400 Speaker 1: convicted of vagrancy, there was no incentive for former slave 59 00:03:45,440 --> 00:03:49,760 Speaker 1: masters to ever set them free. Bailey said, your labor 60 00:03:49,920 --> 00:03:52,440 Speaker 1: is costing almost nothing. They don't have to clothe you. 61 00:03:52,640 --> 00:03:54,680 Speaker 1: They only have to feed you enough to keep you alive. 62 00:03:55,760 --> 00:03:58,280 Speaker 1: And there's a sense that even if one vagrant dies, 63 00:03:58,440 --> 00:04:02,440 Speaker 1: you could get another under this guise of vagrancy. They 64 00:04:02,640 --> 00:04:06,840 Speaker 1: knew it was an unlimited source of black bodies. The U. S. 65 00:04:06,880 --> 00:04:11,880 Speaker 1: Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, formally abolishing slavery in January 66 00:04:11,960 --> 00:04:14,800 Speaker 1: of eighteen sixty five, before the end of the Civil War, 67 00:04:15,720 --> 00:04:19,040 Speaker 1: but the amendment contains a gaping loophole that the Black 68 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:23,120 Speaker 1: Codes were quick to exploit. The Thirteenth Amendment states, neither 69 00:04:23,200 --> 00:04:27,480 Speaker 1: slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, 70 00:04:27,600 --> 00:04:30,919 Speaker 1: whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist 71 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:34,720 Speaker 1: within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 72 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:39,799 Speaker 1: So slavery was abolished except when it was a punishment 73 00:04:39,839 --> 00:04:43,080 Speaker 1: for a crime, which is why the Black Codes made 74 00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:47,240 Speaker 1: black vagrancy a crime, and why young black children would 75 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:49,560 Speaker 1: be forcibly removed from their parents under the guise of 76 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:54,480 Speaker 1: negligence and then apprenticed to a white planter for no pay. 77 00:04:55,320 --> 00:04:58,479 Speaker 1: Bailey said this was a legal system set up to 78 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:02,040 Speaker 1: not only mimic slavery, but to re enslave all these 79 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:05,880 Speaker 1: newly freed men, women and children, and it effectively did. 80 00:05:07,160 --> 00:05:10,039 Speaker 1: Tens of thousands of black people were leased by the 81 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:14,000 Speaker 1: state to planters, miners, corporations, and others to pay off 82 00:05:14,120 --> 00:05:19,360 Speaker 1: these debts. Formerly enslaved people were afforded some new rights 83 00:05:19,440 --> 00:05:23,120 Speaker 1: under the Black Codes too. They could own land and property, 84 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:26,480 Speaker 1: They could legally marry the only other black people, and 85 00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:30,200 Speaker 1: they could sue, be sued, and testify in court, though 86 00:05:30,320 --> 00:05:34,880 Speaker 1: not against white people. But those few rights primarily served 87 00:05:34,960 --> 00:05:38,200 Speaker 1: to give freed people the legal standing to get in trouble. 88 00:05:39,480 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: Bailey said, Southern lawmakers try to hide this under the 89 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:45,520 Speaker 1: guise of well, you do have some rights. You can marry, 90 00:05:45,560 --> 00:05:47,880 Speaker 1: you can testify in court, but only if it was 91 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:50,719 Speaker 1: a person of their race. A black person could never 92 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:53,279 Speaker 1: take recourse against a person they worked for who was 93 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:56,760 Speaker 1: taking advantage of them or who didn't pay them. The 94 00:05:56,800 --> 00:06:00,599 Speaker 1: Black Codes were short lived. The US Congress, frustrated with 95 00:06:00,600 --> 00:06:04,760 Speaker 1: attempts by Southern lawmakers to sidestep Reconstruction passed the Civil 96 00:06:04,800 --> 00:06:07,719 Speaker 1: Rights Act of eighteen sixty six, which affirmed that black 97 00:06:07,760 --> 00:06:11,200 Speaker 1: Americans must be afforded the same civil rights as white Americans. 98 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:14,760 Speaker 1: In the wake of this act, the federal government imposed 99 00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:18,799 Speaker 1: what's known as radical reconstruction on the former Confederate States. 100 00:06:19,520 --> 00:06:21,920 Speaker 1: During this time, black men were given the right to 101 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,000 Speaker 1: vote and run for political office, and thousands of public 102 00:06:25,040 --> 00:06:29,640 Speaker 1: schools opened across the South to serve black children. The 103 00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,520 Speaker 1: Black Codes were nullified, but their legacy would echo down. 104 00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:37,640 Speaker 1: Bailey said, the Black Codes laid the framework for how 105 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:39,719 Speaker 1: this whole system is going to work for the next 106 00:06:39,720 --> 00:06:43,600 Speaker 1: a hundred years. Jim Crow laws, enacted in the South 107 00:06:43,600 --> 00:06:45,960 Speaker 1: in the eighteen nineties and lasting all the way to 108 00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,880 Speaker 1: the civil rights movement of the nineteen fifties and sixties, 109 00:06:49,200 --> 00:06:51,679 Speaker 1: made it illegal for black and white people to share 110 00:06:51,720 --> 00:06:57,919 Speaker 1: any public facilities, meaning that both groups had separate schools, libraries, hospitals, restaurants, 111 00:06:57,920 --> 00:07:03,119 Speaker 1: et cetera, with black people received inferior facilities. Other laws 112 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:06,679 Speaker 1: required literacy tests and or poll taxes to be paid 113 00:07:06,720 --> 00:07:12,920 Speaker 1: before voting, all designed to disenfranchise poor African Americans. In 114 00:07:13,160 --> 00:07:16,800 Speaker 1: that book Slavery by Another Name, journalist Blackman wrote about 115 00:07:16,840 --> 00:07:20,200 Speaker 1: a black man named Green Cottonham who was arrested in 116 00:07:20,280 --> 00:07:24,440 Speaker 1: night in Alabama for vagrancy, the same trumped up charge 117 00:07:24,520 --> 00:07:28,400 Speaker 1: invented forty years earlier by the Black Codes. Cuttenham was 118 00:07:28,440 --> 00:07:31,920 Speaker 1: auctioned off to the Northern Corporation U. S. Steele, who 119 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,280 Speaker 1: chained him in a Birmingham, Alabama coal mine and tasked 120 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:38,160 Speaker 1: him with mining eight tons of coal a day until 121 00:07:38,280 --> 00:07:42,760 Speaker 1: his fine was repaid. If he collapsed from malnourishment or fatigue, 122 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:46,320 Speaker 1: he'd be whipped, and if he died, he'd be buried 123 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,800 Speaker 1: in a shallow, unmarked grave with the rest. More than 124 00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:52,559 Speaker 1: the thousand black men were toiling for U. S. Steel 125 00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:55,720 Speaker 1: along with Cottenham in the same mine. In less than 126 00:07:55,800 --> 00:08:00,160 Speaker 1: one year, sixty were dead from disease, accidents or homicide. 127 00:08:01,640 --> 00:08:05,320 Speaker 1: Even today, over a hundred years later, thousands of prisoners 128 00:08:05,360 --> 00:08:08,880 Speaker 1: in the US, mostly Black and Latino, perform work for 129 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:12,040 Speaker 1: some very large corporations and are paid less than a 130 00:08:12,080 --> 00:08:14,680 Speaker 1: dollar an hour. And it was all set in motion 131 00:08:14,880 --> 00:08:25,320 Speaker 1: by the Black Codes. Today's episode is based on the 132 00:08:25,400 --> 00:08:28,640 Speaker 1: article Slavery under another name, What Were the Black Codes? 133 00:08:28,720 --> 00:08:31,000 Speaker 1: On how Stuff Works dot Com, written by Dave Rouse 134 00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:33,880 Speaker 1: Brain Stuff's production of I heart Radio in partnership with 135 00:08:33,920 --> 00:08:36,280 Speaker 1: how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler Clang. 136 00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:39,439 Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeart 137 00:08:39,520 --> 00:08:42,200 Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your 138 00:08:42,200 --> 00:08:42,920 Speaker 1: favorite shows.