How could you describe the free black situation in the southern states

Life for the four million newly freed slaves wasn't as easy as expected, since many indignities derived from slavery persisted.

Some of the circumstances are the following:

Governments across the South instituted the Black Codes, which granted some legal benefits, but also made it illegal for blacks to serve on juries, testify against whites, or serve in state militias. By the other hand, most South Black Americans lived in extreme poverty, and since education was denied for most of them, ex-slaves (sharecroppers) were often forced by the necessity of their economic situations to rent land from former white slave owners, and pay with part of their crop production. Those who seized land from former slave owners saw their opportunity to build a different life cut by federal troops, who quickly restored the land to the white landowners.

These were some of the circumstances that characterized a denigrated situation for the free blank in the southern states.