Politics and the Gilded Age

The Birth of Jim Crow in the Post-Reconstruction South• Blacks (and poor whites) forced intosharecropping– Land owners (former masters) let ex-slaves andwhites farm on their land in exchange for part ofthe harvest– “crop-lien” system – storekeepers gave goods tosharecroppers on credit; in return had a lien(control over property in exchange for payment ofdebt) on their harvests– Land owners and merchants manipulated thesystem so sharecroppers stayed in debt– Sharecroppers worked in conditions barely betterthan slavery