The End of Reconstruction: Sharecropping, Jim Crow Laws & Plessy vs. Ferguson

The Sharecropping System in the South •  Once slaves were forcibly

freed by the U.S. government, Southerners were still in need of laborers to work in their fields

•  Plantation owners in the south developed a system called sharecropping in which wealthy land owners rented out land to poor freedmen and whites

The Sharecropping System in the South •  Sharecropping left poor

freedmen and whites in a cycle of debt that could never be repaid

•  Freedmen and poor whites paid for the land with a portion of the crops that they grew

Jim Crow Laws force segregation •  Jim Crow Laws were racist

laws like Black Codes that specifically legalized segregation of Blacks and Latinos from Whites

•  Many of these laws were not overturned until the 1960s

•  Even though segregation is no longer legal, many communities, schools, and opportunities continue to be segregated by default

Plessy v. Ferguson •  African Americans filed

lawsuits to challenge segregation created by Jim Crow Laws

•  In 1896, in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court ruled that segregation was legal as long as facilities and services were for blacks and whites were equal