Post Civil War - Laws Relating to Freedmen

After the American Civil War was over, and laws were enacted to protect former slaves, inequalities were still common - and were built into the country's legal system.  This image is from a pamphlet discussing that issue.

The Library of Congress provides further detail:

"In order to regulate the activities of newly freed African Americans, national, state, and local governments developed a body of laws relating to them. Some laws were for their protection, particularly those relating to labor contracts, but others circumscribed their citizenship rights. This volume, compiled by the staff of General Oliver O. Howard, the director of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands - usually called the Freedmen's Bureau - provides a digest of these laws in ten of the former Confederate states up to 1867."

Credits

Laws in Relation to Freedmen, U.S. Sen. 39th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Doc. No. 6

Washington: War Department, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1866-67

Pamphlet

Image, courtesy Library of Congress