Our Keep Us Down tee and the Their Laws pieces carry one line: “The laws made to keep them up keep us down.” That sentence has a history. One of its clearest chapters is the Black Codes.
Freedom, on paper
The 13th Amendment, ratified in December 1865, abolished slavery in the United States — “except as a punishment for crime.” Nearly four million people were now legally free. But in the months that followed, many Southern state legislatures moved quickly to limit what that freedom could mean.
What the Black Codes did
Beginning in late 1865, with Mississippi and South Carolina among the first, Southern states passed laws known as the Black Codes. They varied by state, but many shared the same aims:
- Forced labor contracts. Freedpeople could be required to sign yearly labor contracts, often with former enslavers, and could be punished for leaving.
- Vagrancy laws. A Black person without proof of employment could be arrested, fined, and then hired out to pay the fine.
- Limits on property and work. Some codes restricted where Black Americans could rent or own land, or which jobs they could hold without a special license.
- Apprenticeship of children. Courts could bind Black children to white employers, sometimes without their parents' consent.
Combined with the 13th Amendment's crime exception, these laws pushed many people back into unpaid or forced labor through the courts, including the convict-leasing systems that grew in the decades after.
The response, and what came after
The Black Codes drew national outrage. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and then the 14th Amendment (1868), which guaranteed citizenship and equal protection of the laws. During Reconstruction, many of the codes were struck down or repealed.
But the pattern did not end. After Reconstruction, new laws — later known as Jim Crow — rebuilt many of the same barriers under different names. Different name. Same design.
Why we wear it
“Their Laws” is a reminder that rules are written by people, and that the same systems can lift one group while weighing down another. The Their Laws collection puts that history where people can see it:
- Keep Us Down — The Laws Tee
- Their Laws Statement Bomber Jacket
- Built To Lift Them Varsity Bomber
- Their Laws Youth Joggers
Read more of the history behind our designs in Stories, or learn about who we are.