Section 4

Tenant Farming and Sharecropping

-After the Civil War, many landowners could not pay off their debts and lost their land

        -Big problem—not enough labor

                -No one wanted to work for low wages planting crops

                        -Rented out land

        -Sharecropping

-Agreement under which a sharecropper agreed to work a parcel of land in return for a share of the crop, a cabin, seed, tools, and a mule

                -Planters got their land planted without paying $$$

                -Sharecroppers got place to work w/o being supervised

                -Drawback

-Sharecroppers really didn’t have any income until harvest time

-Had to promise crops to merchant who then gave them credit

-If you couldn’t pay off credit, added to next year’s bill

                        -Crop-lien system

                                -Could never be debt-free

Industrial Growth

        -The South was being hurt by farmers growing only 1 crop

        -South relied too much on the North for manufacturing

                -South needs to become more independent

                        -“New South”

                                -Money was poured in to start businesses

-New businesses paid 40% less than what northerners were being paid

                -These workers were not able to get out of debt

Turning back the Clock

        -Things started to go backwards for African Americans

                -Now in debt to owners of land and merchants

                        -“Tied to the land”

                                -Just like slavery

                -Democrats took control of southern legislatures

                        -Tried to deny rights to African Americans

                                -Voting

                                        -Poll Taxes

                                                -Taxes imposed on voters

                                        -Literacy Tests

                                        -Technically, did not violate 14^th Amend.

                                -Segregation

                                        -Jim Crow Laws

        -Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

                -“Separate but equal”

Black Southerners Organize

-Lots of blacks moved to the Midwest or to northern cities

                -Most stayed in the South

        -Question: How do you fight discrimination?

                -Booker T. Washington

                        -Founded Tuskegee Institute (AL) in 1881

-African Americans should concentrate on advancing economically  

        -Become apprentices in trades

-Need to work with whites

                -Ida Wells-Barnett

                        -Journalist

                        -Wrote editorials against lynching

                                -Got her business burnt down

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