What term describes laws limiting the civil rights of freed slaves?

The term that describes laws limiting the civil rights of freed slaves is "Black Codes." These were laws passed in the southern United States after the Civil War during the Reconstruction Era. Their primary purpose was to restrict the freedoms of African Americans and ensure their availability as a labor force, effectively attempting to maintain a system of racial subordination similar to the antebellum period.

Black Codes included provisions that limited the types of jobs that freed people could hold, required them to sign labor contracts, and imposed severe penalties for vagrancy, thereby criminalizing unemployment among African Americans. Such laws aimed to control the newly freed population and were a significant step backward for civil rights, undermining the freedoms that had been gained through the Emancipation Proclamation and subsequent constitutional amendments.

In contrast, Jim Crow laws, while also discriminatory, were more focused on the broader system of racial segregation that developed later, particularly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Restricted Acts and Anti-Discrimination Laws, on the other hand, do not accurately describe these early post-Civil War statutes; they either suggest a more modern context or are inaccurately named with respect to the era of the Black Codes.