Sharecropper
working with
one-horse plow
Sharecropper working with one-horse plow,
Green County, Georgia, July 1937.
Photo by Dorothea Lange, Farm Security Administration
In the post-Emancipation rural South, most African Americans had no money and were unable to secure loans. They were forced to become share tenants or sharecroppers who provided their own labor and depended on credit for everything from animals to food to shelter. By harvest time these sharecroppers often owed more than they had earned. Thus a system of dependency on Southern plantation owners was perpetuated.