Today in class, we further discussed the aftermath of the civil war. Although in theory slavery was abolished in the newly reunited Union, racism and segregation were still prevalent. Sharecropping began to replace slavery in the south. Although it was cleverly disguised as a form of paid work, in reality, sharecropping was a loophole around the laws that prevented slavery. Since many freed slaves only knew the lives they once had, they often took up the jobs offered by their previous owners, who gave them a place to live and an amount of money to start a farm. They former slaves would use their crops from the farm to pay off the debt, but would be told that the crops they grew weren't enough to fully reimburse the land owner. Their only option was to borrow more money from the landowner in order to grow more crops to pay off the ever increasing debt. We also learned about the Plessy v. Ferguson case. In 1986, Homer Plessy, who was of one-eighth African descent, tried to board a first-class whites only train, and was denied the right due to his lineage. The court ruled against him, bringing about the idea of “separate but equal” - that segregation was okay as long as both races had equal facilities.
There were not equal facilities unfortunately. Blacks often had to drink out of a hose while whites drank out of a nice fountain, but both were considered equal forms of hydration.
ReplyDeleteWhite people would get like nice bathrooms while colored people got holes. There was no such thing as "equal" facilities back then. Also even thought slavery was over, the lives of many former slaves didn't really change much because of sharecropping.
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