Wolford v. Lopez · ¶183

The Black Codes were a series of “harsh and restrictive” laws that Southern legislatures enacted in the wake of the Civil War to control former slaves. D. Nieman, To Set the Law in Motion: The Freedmen’s Bureau and the Legal Rights of Blacks, 1865–1868, p. 72 (1979). These laws were a “legal means of subordinating” the newly freed Black population. E. Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877, p. 198 (1988). The Black Codes impacted nearly every aspect of life for freedmen in the South “[v]irtually from the moment the Civil War ended.” Id., at 198–203. As relevant here, this included whether freedmen could carry firearms. Id., at 203–204. Indeed, as my colleagues have previously explained, laws that restricted the ownership and possession of guns as part of the Black Codes made life dangerous for millions of Black people in the South for over a century. See…

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