On November 25, 1865, Mississippi passed legislation restricting the civil rights of recently emancipated Black people as part of a series of laws designed to codify racial hierarchy in the aftermath of the Civil War. Similar laws, known as “Black Codes,” were quickly adopted in nearly every other Southern state, as politicians committed to upholding the racial order mounted fierce opposition to the promise of social and political equality that many Americans hoped would be realized after Emancipation.

The November 25 act included provisions that barred marriages between Black and white people, limited how and when Black people could leave their jobs to seek better employment opportunities, and prohibited Black people from owning property outside of cities and established towns. It was one of four acts passed by the legislature in late November 1865 that comprised the nation’s first Black Codes. Additional provisions in these acts criminalized Black people for being out of work or unable to prove employment and limited the freedom of Black people to own firearms.

These codes violated the basic rights of Black people and criminalized many behaviors only for African Americans. As a result of the Black Codes, for the first time in U.S. history, many state penal systems began to incarcerate more Black people than white.

To learn more about how laws like these contributed to racial violence, degradation, and segregation in this era, read EJI’s report, Reconstruction in America.