Laws developed after the Civil War (1861-1865) that denied black Americans the right to vote, the right to own property and the right to pursue employment or otherwise advance their economic status.
Laws passed by southern states that defined the rights of former slaves and addressed black–white relationships. In general, these laws generally discriminated on racial grounds. These laws limited the rights of former slaves and led Congress to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment.
Black Codes were special laws passed by southern state and municipal governments immediately after the Civil War. The laws denied many rights of citizenship to free blacks and were designed to control black labor, mobility, and employment, and to get around the Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves. The laws outraged northerners.