The horror and neo-slavery of sharecropping
by Jehron Muhammad
fleeced this poor sharecropping class by “cooking the
books,” or charging more than was actually owed.
During a recent visit to see my 91-year-old
In one of the many portraits chronicling the
grandmother, I inquired about her move from
sharecropping
system, an intelligent young Black girl
Abbevelle, S.C. to Philadelphia. After the death of her
schooled
in
“rudimentary
math” discovers she is no
mother, my grandmother, Francis Ramsey, said her
sharecropper father decided there was no reason to stay match “for the figures at the company store.” In Jean
Wheeler Smith’s Frankie Mae (1968) the 13-year-old
and moved the family to Philadelphia. She was six years
old when the decision was made and till this very day she questions the landowner's calculations. Barely able to
restrain himself from shooting the young girl and her
still doesn’t understand why there was such an abrupt
father, the landowner sends them away with these
relocation.
words: “Long as you live, b---h, I'm gonna be right and you
The backbreaking workload
gonna be wrong. Now get your black a-- outta here.”
precipitated by a post- slavery
The incentive to leave the sharecropper existence
sharecropping economy that left
was apparent and was a main reason for Black migrations
Black farmers always in debt to their
to the North.
White masters is probably the
Since the landlord’s and merchant’s profits depended
answer behind the decision to move
on
Black labor, they were determined to keep
Volume 2 • Issue 1 • 2011
North.
sharecroppers in their place. Threats of violence,
According to the new book The
intimidation and actual brute force to keep tenants from
Secret Relationships Between Blacks & Jews: How Jews
Gained Control Over The Black American Economy Volume leaving became the order of the day. When Blacks were
discovered on trains trying to leave their meager
Two, under this slavery-like system, Black farmers
“renting on the worst possible terms … had to pay half to existence, they were often pulled off and returned to
their plantations. But this didn't stop the exodus to the
two-thirds of their yearly crop to the landlord for the
North. In fact between 1920 and 1930, Chicago, a
privilege” of sharecropping. And since the sharecropper
favorite destination of Blacks fleeing the South,
needed “mules, tools, and seed, along with necessities
increased from a population of 109,458 to 233,903. The
including food, clothing and shelter, for himself and his
growth was attributable to Blacks fleeing the South for
family in order to get started in farming,” his only
the dream of better living conditions in the North.
collateral—since he had no money to pay the
As a child the desire to leave a slave-like existence
merchant—was his future crop.
and the sentiments expressed in
Never able to generate
Frankie Mae were actually shared
enough money to pay off this debt
with the author by 66-year-old
owed to the merchant and
Sakinah Muhammad, formally
landlord, the Black farmer was
known as Johnnie Bynum. During a
resigned to working in a system
phone interview from her home in
geared toward enslavement
Baton Rouge, La., she talked about
through debt, while his White
her sharecropping experience.
“masters” waxed fat off of his
Between the age of 8 and 16,
labor.
Johnnie
(Sakinah), her mom and 8
Some larger plantations, with
of
her
10
siblings worked on a 20many sharecropper farms, printed
acre
farm
in Baton Rouge picking
their own paper money and
cotton. She said her weekly wage
minted their own coins. These
Sharecroppers: Every day, All day, Forever.
between age 8 and 10 (obviously
were actually advanced to
this
wasn't
affected
by
child labor laws) consisted of
sharecroppers against the following year's harvest and to
“vanilla
wafers,
cookies,
cheese and a soda.” She said
guarantee purchases from plantation stores. The trouble
between ages 10 and 16 her weekly salary increased to
was the money was legal tender only when used at the
25 cents. Though the conditions “were very harsh” and
plantation store, and the price for goods, in most cases,
far exceeded the prices at the neighboring town market. led her to often be “very sick,” she was still able—
between the ages of 8 and 10 to pick three bales of
Other more creative methods to exploit Blacks were
cotton per day and nearly double that output between
used, including selling government-issued free goods
ages 10 and 16. She worked seven days per week from
that were supposed to feed the freed slaves. In addition
“dawn until sunset.”
the Whites, and in more cases Jewish merchants, also
The Horror and Neo-slavery of Sharecropping
“You missed a lot of school because you had to work
the field,” she said.
She later via email recollected one of the reasons for
her constantly being sick: “There wasn't any bathrooms
for Blacks. My first year in the field, I would soil my
clothes and my mother was not able to stop work to take
me out of sight to relieve myself.”
Also growing up sharecropping and working the
cotton field was literary giant Alice Walker and former
Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod.
During a recent CNN interview she explained her “back
breaking” experience picking cotton in Georgia. “You
had a sack, you know, that you put on and the sack went
over,” Sherrod explained, “a (particular) shoulder.” She
then gestured about “the opening” of the sack being a
certain place in relation to her shoulder. “So you are
bending over picking cotton and putting it in the sack.
And when it gets full, you got to take it over to a burlap
sheet and pour it in there and you did that all day long,”
she said.
Alice Walker didn’t like the feeling of revisiting
slavery. According to Alice Walker: A Critical Companion
(2005) by Gerri Bates, Walker, whose parents were
sharecroppers, felt this post-slavery system “was worse
than slavery,” because this system “took exploitation to a
new level.”
Under slavery people were never compensated;
under sharecropping they “worked and were rarely paid
2 and ended up in debt.” This system of neo-slavery, which
literally thousands of Black households experienced
across the South, “robbed her of her early life, which to
her was a lifetime,” wrote Bates.
This robbing of a lifetime is why Sakinah Muhammad
says she “cries each time” she picks up and reads The
Secret Relationship Vol. 2. This chronicling of the postemancipation system that forced Blacks back into a slavelike existence and robbed them of a chance to achieve
economic parity is not only what “I've read,” she said, “it's
what I actually experienced.”
(We'd love to hear from you. Many Black parents and
grandparents have experienced much of what was written
above. There are literally thousands of similar stories. But
the problem is our relatives are up in age and we stand to
lose this history unless it's chronicled. What we propose is
that you interview your relatives that have held on to this
information and then send those stories to the email
provided. A Web site will be created for posting these stories
and allowing the world to read and begin to show
appreciation for the holocaust that Black people have
suffered.
[Jehron Muhammad is a member of the Nation of Islam
Historical Research Department.]
For more on this topic, visit http://www.BlacksandJews.com and
read the Final Call Newspaper. You can also join the
conversation on Twitter@BlacksandJews.
The Jeffersons: The Reality Show
The shocking history of the family of
Thomas Jefferson, the iconic founding
father of the United States of America, is
revealed in an incident that occurred with
two of his nephews and their 50 enslaved
Africans. Isham and Lillburn Lewis were
sons of the President's sister, Lucy
Jefferson Lewis and were also relatives of
Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame.
The two Kentucky slaveowners confronted
“George,” after the boy had broken a water
pitcher. The following is a description of
what happened next:
Lewis then collected all the slaves into an
out house, and ordered a rousing fire to be
made. When the door was secured, that
none might escape, either through fear or
sympathy, Lewis opened the design of the
meeting, namely, that they might be
effectually taught to stay at home and obey
his orders. All things being now in train, he
called up George, who approached his
“master” with the most unreserved
submission. He bound him with cords, and
laid him on a meatblock, and seizing a
broad axe, proceeded to chop him into
Monticello: Thomas Jefferson's slave-built
home in Virginia.
pieces, commencing at the ankles.
In vain did the unhappy victim call upon
his “Master” to forgive him. In vain did he
scream. Not a slave durst interfere. Casting
the feet into the fire, he lectured the Slaves at
some length. He then chopped off below the
knees, and admonished them again,
throwing the legs into the fire. He then
chopped off above the knees, tossing the
joints into the fire, lecturing as he proceeded.
The next two or three strokes severed the
thighs from the body. These were also
committed to the flames. And so were the
arms, head and trunk, until all was in the
fire—still protracting the intervals with
lectures, and threatenings of like
punishment, in case of disobedience and
running away. The Slaves were then
permitted to disperse.
When the monster returned to his house,
Mrs. Lewis exclaimed, “Oh! Mr. Lewis where
have you been, and what have you done!”
She had heard a strange pounding, and
dreadful screams, and had smelled
something like fresh meat burning! He
replied that he had never enjoyed himself at
a ball so well as he had enjoyed himself that
evening.
Source: The Hidden History of Washington, DC:
A Guide for Black Folks (1996).
Read all of the Nation of Islam Research Group’s Weekly Reports • issuu.com/noirg