"Black Codes" were legal statutes and constitutional amendments enacted by the ex-Confederate states following the Civil War that sought to restrict the liberties of newly freed slaves, ensure a supply of inexpensive agricultural labor, and maintain white dominated hierarchy.

However, the history of Black Codes did not begin with the collapse of the Confederacy. Prior to the Civil War, southern states enacted Slave Codes to regulate the institution of slavery. Furthermore, northern, non-slave holding states enacted laws to limit the black political power and social mobility. For example, in 1804, Ohio enacted laws prohibiting free blacks from immigrating into the state. In 1813, the State of Illinois enacted a law banning free blacks outright from immigrating into the State.

Black Codes adopted after the Civil War borrowed elements from the antebellum slave laws and from the laws of the northern states used to regulate free blacks. Some Black Codes incorporated morality clauses based on antebellum slave laws into Back Code labor laws. For example, in Texas, a morality clause was used to make it crime for laborers to use offensive language in the presence of their employers, his agents, or his family members. Borrowing from the Ohio and Illinois codes, Arkansas enacted an ordinance banning free blacks from immigrating into the state.

In the end, the Black Codes were largely extinguished when Radical Republican Reconstruction efforts began in 1866-67, and with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights legislation. Though the statutory lives of the Black Codes were short-lived, they are significant in that they served as precursors to the Jim Crow laws. For example, Arkansas passed a law prohibiting black children from attending school with children. The Texas legislature enacted a law requiring railroad companies to set aside a passenger car for black passengers.

While each ex-Confederate state enacted its own set of Black Codes, all of them shared certain features. First, they defined the term "person of color." Second, they prevented blacks from voting, holding office, or serving on juries. Third, they prevented blacks from serving in state militias. Fourth, they mandated for poor, unemployed persons (usually blacks) be arrested for vagrancy or bound as apprentices. Fifth, they mandated and regulated labor contracts between whites and free blacks. Sixth, they prohibited interracial marriages between whites and blacks.

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