Praxis II Citizenship

Answer: A - The Black Codes were a body of segregationist laws that Southern states enforced during Reconstruction. They were enacted at the state and local levels in 1865 and 1866 following the end of the Civil War. The laws were extremely harsh and typically featured a vagrancy clause, which allowed law enforcement to sentence violators to mandatory hard labor, essentially forcing black Americans back into slavery. When Reconstruction ended in 1876, the Black Codes were replaced with Jim Crow laws, which continued to enforce racial segregation but included provisions for supposed equality between separate institutions.