In the pre-war period, Southern state law has discriminated against free blacks, providing harsher criminal punishment for them than for whites, denying them the right to testify against whites, and severely restricting their liberty in numerous ways. In the war's aftermath, Southern whites, rapidly able to gain control of their state and local governments under President Andrew Johnson's program of reconstruction, stood ready to apply this discriminatory law to the freedmen.

Câu hỏi

The word “their” in the passage refers to _______.