Laws passed in southern states to restrict the rights and freedoms of African Americans.

• A. Black Codes
• B. 13th Amendment
• C. 14th Amendment
• D. Freedmen's Bureau

Answer: (A)

This topic focuses on laws created by Southern states after the Civil War to control the newly freed African Americans. These are known as Black Codes. They were designed to limit freedoms and maintain a social and economic order similar to slavery, by imposing curfews, restricting where people could live and work, enforcing labor contracts, and limiting rights such as voting or access to courts. The other options represent protections or federal assistance rather than restrictive state laws: the amendment ended slavery, the other amendment granted citizenship and equal protection, and a federal agency helped freedpeople. So, the best description of laws that restricted African American rights in the South is Black Codes.