On September 14, 1969, the book Sounder was written and published by William H. Armstrong. This novel is about a young black boy who lives with his family in a group of farmers. In this group of farmers, everyone is a sharecropper. The term sharecropper mentions to a person who is a tenant farmer who pays their rent with their crops. The word “sharecropper” begins from the Southern US in 1887, the share-crop system was confirmed in 1871. The word “sharecropper” was noted as a verb, “sharecropper” being confirmed in 1939.
Foley argues that prior to the Civil War, there was a sharp line delineating tenant farmers and sharecroppers. Tenant farmers were almost always white, owned their own tools and rented land for a third of the cotton and a fourth of the grain harvested.
Crow laws and share cropping. At this day and age in American history, the life of a black child
Jazz as a general genre reached its peak in the thirties. Jazz was incredibly popular with both the Black community, and the white community; however, Jazz reached the adolescents the most. Jazz music was associated with the African American culture during this time of increible racial tension, subsequently the ‘teens’ of this generation began to tune into this genre for its rebelistic qualities. Popular forms of jazz music often included, Dixieland/’hot’ jazz, classical jazz, and bebop. The defining artist of hot jazz was Louis Armstrong. This music was characterized by collective improvised solos, around melodic structure, that ideally built up to an emotional and "Hot" climax. The rhythm section, which typically consists of percussion, bass, banjo, or guitar helps to support this crescendo, many times in the style of a
Louis Armstrong and Bix Beiderbecke were two of the most popular jazz artists of their times. These two men had the similarity of loving jazz music, however there were also many differences between the two. These two men had different lives growing up, Louis Armstrong grew up in a wealthy family, there was not struggle for him growing up while on the other hand Bix Beiderbecke grew up in a poor family and he had many struggles growing up in the streets of New Orleans. Then there were their musical styles, these men were known for their distinct musical styles. Louis Armstrong seemed to focus on hot jazz while Bix Beiderbecke focused more on a cool, reflective type of jazz. They seem to focus on two different things and this can be the reason
After the black Americans were freed from their slave masters they did not have ‘a cent in their pockets’ and ‘without a hut to shelter them’ . This obvious lack a home, and the monetary funds needed to support them [the freed slaves] and their families, together with the lack of widespread Government support meant that many slaves continued to live in poverty, and in many ways, they could have been better off (economically), had they been left in bondage . For this reason, many Southern slaves ‘had little choice but to remain as paid labourers or to become sharecroppers working on the land as before’ . Sharecropping, which generally involved the ex-slaves renting land, tools, and a house from a white landlord, working the land that is given to them, and then providing the landlord with one-half to two-thirds of the produce . ‘This system kept the black cotton producers in an inferior position’ , which means that while they were ‘officially free’; they were still stuck in the previous cycle of working for their previous masters, without hope of escape for a better life. While this is what most ex-slaves did, some, like Jourdan Anderson, who left the farm on which he, was prior to being freed, with his family, ‘would rather stay here and starve - and die’ than to have his girls ‘brought to shame by...
Throughout history, and even today, music has shaped America’s culture, society, and even politics. One of the most outstanding and enduring musical movement has been from African American artists, ranging from bebop to jazz to hip-hop to rap. During the 1920’s , jazz artists stepped into the limelight and began their impact on American and even world history. Louis Armstrong was one of the most influential leaders during the Harlem Renaissance and his jazz legacy and impact of American history is everlasting. A master of his craft, Armstrong and his music heavily influenced America’s white and black populations from the 1920’s and up until his death.
A major drought, over-cultivation, and a country suffering from one of the greatest depressions in history are all it took to displace hundreds of thousands of Midwesterners and send them, and everything they had, out west. The Dust Bowl ruined crops all across the Great Plains region, crops that people depended on for survival. When no food could be grown and no money could be made, entire families, sometimes up to 8 people or more, packed up everything they had and began the journey to California, where it was rumored that jobs were in full supply. Without even closing the door behind them in some cases, these families left farms that had been with them for generations, only to end up in a foreign place where they were neither welcomed nor needed in great quantity. This would cause immense problems for their futures. It is these problems that author John Steinbeck spent a great deal of his time studying and documenting so that Americans could better understand the plight of these migrant farmers, otherwise known as "Okies." From touring many of these "Hoovervilles" and "Little Oklahomas" (pg. v) Steinbeck was given a firsthand look at the issues and hardships these migrant workers faced on a daily basis. With the help of Tom Collins, manager of a federal migrant labor camp, Steinbeck began a "personal and literary journey" (pg. v), revealing to the world the painful truth of these "Okies" in his book Harvest Gypsies.
For many people in the 1930’s living conditions were not as adequate as they needed to be. The stock market had just crashed in 1928, and the US was in the midst of the Great Depression. Many people suffered from lack of money, and many others suffered from lack of food. One group of people who suffered greatly during this time period were the southern share croppers. Factors that caused the substandard living conditions of the southern share croppers in the 1930’s include lack of education, poor health care, and inadequate living facilities. The first factor that caused the substandard living conditions of the southern share croppers was their lack of education. There were several reasons the share croppers didn’t get the education they needed. One main reason was because many children didn’t go to school. Harold Walker writes that Southern cotton states ranked lower in rate of attendance for each student enrolled than any of the other states in the nation (4). A factor that contributed to this was their excessive mobility, which inhibited many children from going to school (Corder 27). It is common knowledge that any child who constantly moves around will not be able to attend school on a regular basis, and even if they go to a school when they get a chance they will be so far behind they would have a difficult time catching up. Another factor that impeded on a child’s attendance at school was the fact that they never went to school when there was cotton to be picked (Walker 8). This may not seem like a large task, but some times it could take weeks to pick all the cotton. These few weeks that a child spent picking cotton was valuable learning time, and missing it could put a child too far behind to catch up. Another reason share croppers didn’t get the education they needed was because many southern rural schools had short terms (Gentry 21). Because of this teachers would not be able to cover all of the material that they needed to cover, or they would have to rush through the material they did cover. A final reason the education of the southern cotton states was not as good as other states was because their teachers were not as good. This was reflected in the fact that the salaries of Southern teachers were not as high as the salaries of other teachers (Mckeon 98).
The story is told through the eyes of seven year old Luke Chandler. Luke lives with his parents and grandparents on their rented farmland in the lowlands of Arkansas. It takes place during the harvest season for cotton in 1952. Like other cotton growers, these were hard times for the Chandlers. Their simple lives reached their zenith each year with the task of picking cotton. It’s more than any family can complete by themselves. In order to harvest the crops and get paid, the Chandlers must find cotton pickers to help get the crops to the cotton gin. In order to persevere, they must depend on others. They find two sets of migrant farm workers to assist them with their efforts: the Mexicans, and the Spruills - a family from the Arkansas hills that pick cotton for others each year. In reading the book, the reader learns quickly that l...
Since most blacks lacked money to buy land many had to rent the land they worked. They had to rent land from white owners, which turned into sharecropping, where the black farmers kept some of their crop and gave the rest to the landowner for payment of the land. This ...
Would the system of sharecropping have worked out to be more effective, had they been able to take advantage of what the government had offered them? The lives of southern sharecroppers were the result of a greedy and corrupt system. The sharecroppers lives were subjected to substandard clothing, insufficient food supplies, and rising health issues due to a lack of respect and care for the hardworking man.
A large population of people had just become free but the real matter at hand centered on survival. Since they were not yet legal citizens, the freed slaves still had to rely heavily on those around them and such solution to their economic plight was sharecropping. At first, this concept would have been beneficial to freed slaves and their quest for freedom but it quickly became an obstacle. From the textbook The Enduring Vision, sharecropping is “the most widespread arrangement, evolved as a compromise. Under the sharecropping system, landowners’ subdivided large plantations into farms of thirty to fifty acres, which they rented to freedmen….Freedmen preferred sharecropping to wage labor because it represented a step toward independence…Planters often spoke of sharecropping as a concession, but they benefitted, too. They retained power over tenants” (Boyer, pg. 485, The Crises of Reconstruction). In spite of this feeling of independence, tenants were still at the mercy of the landlords because they could be evicted at a moment’s notice. In addition to the possibility of expulsion, many farmers became trapped within their contracts with the landowner demanding more each year. In some cases, the farmers never were able to get of debt. Such unfairness in modern times could be avoided but with little legislation in place to protect freedmen, many suffered. In spite of programs like the Freedmen’s Bureau (program dedicated to helping freed blacks become established) and guaranteed wages through black codes, there was not much impact on the free man’s everyday life until the latter half of the 1860’s with the passage of the fourteenth
Sharecropping and the Jim Crow laws maintained a chokehold on the freemen and poor white sharecroppers. After the American Civil War, sharecropping replaced the big plantations throughout the soft. Sharecropping was a response to economic depression caused by the end of slavery. Many poor white and black farmers earned a living working the land owned by someone else. The first sharecroppers were the former black slaves. The system continued to enslave the freemen to a certain degree because of the control the landowners possessed. The laws benefited the owners and not the croppers. The poor white farmers eventually entered the system. The owner of the land would provide the sharecroppers land and tools to cultivate the fields. The poor sharecropper would be responsible for purchasing seeds, fertilizers and anything else, which a farmer needed to have available. With little room for any profits, this became the new slavery.
Share cropping was an idea of whites again depriving blacks of their rights and freedom by treating blacks as slaves and forcing them to work on plantations sometimes dishonest whites refusing to pay them for their work. This was a form of control over the blacks by the whites and another reason of how southern whites limited black rights and liberties.
...white framers became dependent on local merchants to sell their goods to other people. However, the landowners still complained about a "labor shortage." The sharecropping system emerged as the dominant labor system in the South. The sharecropping system was a system of agricultural in which a landowner would allow a tenant to use their land. African Americans started to rent individual plots to do their own work. The share cropping system placed a premium on utilizing the labor of all the family members in the family.