After the U.S. Civil War, the South passed "Black Codes", laws that tried to control freed black slaves. Vagrancy laws were included in these Black Codes. Homeless or even unemployed African Americans who were between jobs, most of whom were former slaves were arrested and fined as vagrants. Usually lacking the resources to pay the fine, the "vagrant" was sent to county labor or hired out to a private employer. The authorities also tried to restrict the movement of freedmen between rural areas and cities, to between towns. Under such laws, local officials arbitrarily arrested tens of thousands of freedmen and charged them with fines and court costs of their cases. White merchants, farmers, and business owners could pay their debts and the prisoner had to work off the debt. Prisoners were leased as laborers to owners and operators of coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries, and farm plantations, with the revenues for their labor going to the states. Government officials leased imprisoned blacks and whites to small town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations looking for cheap labor. Their labor was repeatedly bought and sold for decades after the official abolition of American slavery. It seems like the more things change the more they stay the same.

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