For African Americans in the South, life after slavery was a world transformed. Gone were the brutalities and indignities of slave life, the whippings and sexual assaults, the selling and forcible relocation of family members, the denial of education, wages, legal marriage, homeownership, and more. African Americans celebrated their newfound freedom both privately and in public jubilees.
"poll tax" describes a legal means southern whites used to prevent blacks from voting in the post-Reconstruction era but there were other means as well.
