Retrieved from: http://www.americanvawp.com/reader/reconstruction/mississippi-black-code-1865/
Vagrancy Law
Section 2. Be it further enacted, that all freedmen, free Negroes, and mulattoes in this state over the age of eighteen years found on the second
Monday in January 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together either in the
day or nighttime, and all white persons so assembling with freedmen, free Negroes, or mulattoes, or usually associating with freedmen, free
Negroes, or mulattoes on terms of equality, or living in adultery or fornication with a freedwoman, free Negro, or mulatto, shall be deemed
vagrants; and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined in the sum of not exceeding, in the case of a freedman, free Negro, or mulatto, 150, and a
white man, $200, and imprisoned at the discretion of the court, the free Negro not exceeding ten days, and the white man not exceeding six
months....
1. Use the document to support the thesis: "Reconstruction was a failure in the short-term because the gains which were made on
equality slowly evaporated through the 19th century."
