Were the African-Americans in the South during the Reconstruction free?

Although there are serval pieces evidence that African Americans were free during Reconstruction, there also serval that African Americans were not free during reconstruction. The Southern states has a major part in denying the freedom of African Americans. They created Black Codes which restricted the freedom of American Americans. Clearly, Caucasian men, mainly in the Southern states had a problem with accepting African Americans as equal citizens. Since African Americans were very poor at the time, had to be forced to do Sharecropping. Sharecropping involve a certain amount of rules due to the Black Codes that if an African American is unable to follow them, that person would have to pay a fine.

Technically, African Americans were free as result of the Reconstruction amendments--13th, 14th and 15th amendments. However, the guarantees of these amendments, which abolished slavery, granted citizenship and voting rights for African American men, were eroded during Reconstruction. The period witnessed the restatement of the Slave Codes in the form vagrancy and loitering laws. Blacks were reduced to tenant farming and sharecropping and their civil and political rights were virtually eliminated. Reconstruction ended in 1876 as a result of the Hayes-Tilden Compromise, which removed the remaining federal troops from the South.