Event+from+History

Black Codes
Mark Twain's novel, the //Adventures of Huckleberry Finn//, critiques a variety of the institutions and practices that the United States had undergone during the Reconstruction period or post Civil War. Racism towards blacks was still a burning issue and whites were not ready to accept their colored "neighbors" with open arms. Twain's novel critiques the ways in which these civilized English born citizens or ancestors of English born citizens could exhibit such hypocritical beliefs. Many of these whites being Christians, as that was the most popular religion in the U.S., were sitting in a hot-bed of their own hypocrisy. The Black Codes were a consistent example of how the white Southerners welcomed racism and slavery into their lives by accepting and enforcing these Codes. They walked as 'men of God', one hand carressing their Bible, the other embracing the Codes to oppress their people. One of the single most important issues to ever have risen in this country was the oppression of blacks. When the Civil War had come to a close, there was nothing left to do but pick up all the bits and pieces and try to re-unite an exceedingly broken and hostile nation. The country was in ruins and racial tensions were flaring. Even during the Reconstruction, most Southern whites still retained their racist views towards blacks and were infuriated by having to accept that they no longer were their 'property'. Southerners were convinced that they would do whatever they could in order to ensure that blacks felt like worthless, second-class citizens. In doing this, they imposed the Black Codes. "Encouraged by President Johnson's evident intention to return to them the management of their own affairs, Southern legislators, elected by white voters, passed what came to be called Black Codes. Their very evident purpose was to reduce free blacks to a new kind of legal servitude distinguished by all the disadvantages of slavery and none of its advantages--a state, many argued, that was worse than slavery itself" (Smith).

Blacks were treated as if they were loathsome criminals, accused, and proven guilty, jailed, fined, contained within limits, and lessened as human beings just becasue of the color of their skin. The first town to pass these Codes was Opelousas, Loiusiana which declared: "No negro or freedmen shall be allowed to come within the limits of the town of Opelousas without special permission from his employers... Whoever shall violate this provision shall suffer imprisonment and two days work on the public streets, or pay a fine of five dollars. Any Negro found on the streets of the town after ten o'clock in the evening had to work for five days on the public streets or pay a $5 fine... No negro or freedman shall be permitted to rent or keep a house within the limits of the town under any circumstances... No negro or freedman shall reside within the limits of the town...who is not in the regular service of some white person or former owner. . .(Smith). The white Christian Southerners that imposed these acts of cruelty and racism are so blatantly hypocrticical of their own religion that it is apalling. A majority of the South, and on a larger scale the nation, were Christians at that time. With this conclusion, it can be assumed that many or all of these whites believed strongly in God, and thus with the believing in God, comes the obedience of the Ten Commandments. Nevertheless, one of the commandments proclaims, "Love thy neighbor as thyself" (Christianity), which in turn contradicts their actions by inflicting the Black Codes. The whites were not treating their black neighbors with the same respect that they would give to themselves, more or less a human. They were deliberately defying one of the Ten Commandments as well as the foundation of the very country that we reside in. It is in the Black Codes that the hypocrisy of a civilized Christian society exemplified during the Reconstruction period mirrors or critiques the Christian society depicted in Huckleberry Finn.

P5 CO'Toole