Black Codes
What are Black Codes???
Southern states really said here is your freedom but with terms and conditions by passing these laws. They are ways to control and restrict the freedom of African Americans. To continue enforcing a form of racial hierarchy
What is Convict Leasing???
a practice that allowed private businesses to “lease” prisoners from state and local governments
Who is Richard Nixon???
The President rooted on intallation of The War on drugs
What is Jim Crow???
Laws that legally enforced racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans.
What is Systemic Racism?
This term describes how policies like the War on Drugs and Jim Crow have created long-lasting, built-in inequalities within American society.
What are Vagrancy Laws?
This type of law was often used to arrest African Americans who were unemployed, effectively supplying labor for the convict leasing system.
What type of laws were often used to arrest African Americans and supply labor for convict leasing?
Black Codes / vagrancy laws
What is Mass Incarceration?
War on Drugs led the U.S. to have the highest incarceration rate in the world, disproportionately affecting Black communities.
What is Plessy v. Ferguson?
This 1896 Supreme Court ruling famously upheld Jim Crow laws by establishing the separate but equal doctrine.
What is the Civil Rights Act of 1866?
This 1866 Act was passed by Congress in response to the Black Codes, aiming to guarantee that all citizens had the same right to make and enforce contracts.
how was convict leasing contributed to a system similar to slavery?
Prisoners were forced into unpaid labor under harsh conditions
What is the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986?
This 1986 law created a massive 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
What is a Poll Tax?
This was a common method used under Jim Crow to prevent Black citizens from voting by requiring them to pay a fee at the polling place.
What are Labor Contracts?
Most Black Codes required African Americans to sign these yearly agreements; if they left before the year was up, they could be arrested and forced to forfeit all wages.
After which major event did the convict leasing system become widely used in the South?
The American Civil War
What are Grandfather Clauses?
These were used to exempt white voters from literacy tests and poll taxes if their ancestors had the right to vote before the Civil War.
What is the 13th Amendment?
This 1865 Amendment ended slavery "except as punishment for a crime," a loophole Southern states exploited by passing Black Codes to criminalize African American life.
Why did Southern states prefer convict leasing over prisons?
It made money for the state and reduced the cost of housing prisoners.
What is the 1994 Crime Bill?
This 1994 legislation, signed by Bill Clinton, provided billions for prisons and incentivized truth-in-sentencing laws, further increasing prison populations.
What is the 14th Amendment?
This amendment, ratified in 1868, was supposed to prevent Jim Crow laws by guaranteeing "equal protection" under the law for all citizens.