ABSTRACT
The Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment brought an end to slavery, but did not give the former bondsmen either legal or political equality. In fact, the Southern state almost immediately passed a series of laws known as "Black Codes", which, if not enslaving the freedmen, severely restricted their freedoms and put them at the mercy of whites. Opposition to black freedom often took extra-legal forms as well, as the white-sheeted Ku Klux Klan rode the countryside harassing, brutalizing, and sometimes murdering former slaves. Prior to the Civil War the inferior status of slaves had made it unnecessary to pass laws segregating them from white people. In order to "promote the comfort of passengers", railroads had to provide "equal but separate accommodations for the white and colored races" on lines running in the state. Mississippi established segregation in hospitals, a practice soon adopted elsewhere, and even forbade white nurses from attending black patients.
