African Americans After Civil War Essay

Some may say that the status of African Americans changed drastically after the Civil War. Others may say that their status did not changed at all, for the way people view them, were still as bad as when they were enslaved. Brown addresses this issue of how African American’s interpretation of freedom was different than what their White Republican allies advocated it to be. Many of the freed black men and women had thought that being a freed person would solve all their problems, such as being treated horribly by their vile white masters, but this was not the case in 1865. This sheds light on the fact that in order to guarantee real freedom for Southern Blacks, they needed to educate themselves on things such as their rights, and use it …show more content…
During this era, Southern Blacks needed a place to live and a job, so most turned to sharecropping which is a system in which the landowner permits the tenant to use their land in return for a portion of the crops grown on his/her land. Usually in most situations, there would be a sharecropping contract and many times African Americans did not know how to read these contracts. This itself, gives the landowner the upper hand because he can briefly ‘say’ what is on the contract without going into the details. For example, in the contract, “A Share-Wages Contract, 1865”, the employers affirms, “Secondly, That at the close of the year 1866, the parties of the 1st part are to deliver to the parties of the 2nd part one fourth of the crop of corn and cotton made…” (A Share-Wages Contract, 43). This is particularly worrisome because if the African Americans had to feed their own families and still give one fourth of their crops to their landowner, they would not have any crops left to sell. Therefore, they become stuck in this cycle of sharecropping, that ultimately gives the landowner, who were mostly White, the upper hand in this