Читать книгу Police in America - Steven G. Brandl - Страница 53

Slavery was officially abolished at the end of the Civil War with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865. The former slave owners and other pro-slavery whites now had a problem uniquely their own: a “free” black population. According to authors Jerome Skolnick and James Fyfe, “The post–Civil War South faced the enormous problem of absorbing a population of former slaves while maintaining the dominance of the white caste.”¹² The emergence of the Ku Klux Klan was part of the solution to this problem for the pro-slavery Southerners. The Klan’s mission was to strike terror into the freed slaves and their sympathizers in order to keep them in a powerless position. Lynching was a common tool of the Klan: From 1882 to 1959, it is estimated nearly 5,000 lynchings occurred in the United States.¹³ The activities of the Klan went on largely without interference from officials.

Along with the use of terror as a tool, another tactic of the pro-slavery faction was the creation of so-called black codes, which articulated black citizens’ “rights and responsibilities.” For example, blacks were prohibited from renting land in cities, and vagrancy was punishable by forced plantation labor. Other rules prohibited “insulting language,” “malicious mischief,” and preaching the Gospel without a license. South Carolina required that blacks be farmers or servants unless they paid a special (and unaffordable) tax.¹⁴

black codes: Codes designed to limit the rights of freed slaves in the post–Civil War South.

Photo 2.2 The Industrial Revolution led to the creation of cities, which in turn led to rising concern about crime and the formation of formal police departments.

@iStockphoto.com/ilbusca

The black codes were made illegal as a result of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution. In place of the black codes came Jim Crow laws, which mandated racial segregation in public facilities. Interestingly, Jim Crow laws actually first appeared in the North before being widely adopted in the South. These laws existed until the 1960s. The black codes and Jim Crow laws are particularly relevant when considering the history of the police because although these laws were not created by the police, the police were expected to enforce them. It is also important to remember that at this time, the police were exclusively white. It was not until the late 1800s that any blacks were appointed as officers.

Jim Crow laws: Laws that mandated racial segregation in public facilities.