However, their expectations were not met. Aside from not being able to take part in government, as of November 1865, any “freedmen, freed negroes, and mulattoes in this state [Mississippi], over the age of eighteen years, found on the second of Monday in January 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined a sum not exceeding fifty dollars and imprisonment at the discretion of the court not exceeding ten days.” The state of Mississippi had passed a law saying that any newly freed man found without a job or some sort of business would be fined and imprisoned for no longer than ten
However, their expectations were not met. Aside from not being able to take part in government, as of November 1865, any “freedmen, freed negroes, and mulattoes in this state [Mississippi], over the age of eighteen years, found on the second of Monday in January 1866, or thereafter, with no lawful employment or business, or found unlawfully assembling themselves together, either in the day or night time shall be deemed vagrants, and on conviction thereof shall be fined a sum not exceeding fifty dollars and imprisonment at the discretion of the court not exceeding ten days.” The state of Mississippi had passed a law saying that any newly freed man found without a job or some sort of business would be fined and imprisoned for no longer than ten