A similar fungibility of race and class continued after the Civil War. The idea persisted in many quarters that poor people who were transient or appeared not to be working posed a threat to public peace and good order, and that such people were not entitled to the same basic rights as others. Freedmen’s Bureau agents and other northerners in the post–Civil War South insisted on racial equality before the law but felt entirely free to crack down on “vagrancy” and “vagabondage.” A northern clergyman in Memphis, for instance, vigorously condemned overtly racist policies but urged officials to
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