sharecropper

At least the farm buildings had electricity. Much of the rural south didn't

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Social Documentary Photography & events, and we'd love to have your photo added to the group.

Has this field been planted yet? I see grass/weeds that they are 'chopping' but no cotton. One of the earlier photos shows some plant, I assume cotton, a few inches high in rows that the people are working around with hoes but not here and they should be high enough to show up. Is this just a very labor-intensive way to prepare last years ground for the new planting?

They probably couldn't afford any major pieces of equipment. It was a cheap but labor intensive tillage method involving chopping down the old cotton plant stalks and turning any plant material under the soil surface.

Looks like sugarcane forground left side....

I am noting the even distribution of labor. No glass ceiling here.

What I see in this photo is a group of Southern Black Sharecroppers representative of the the early 1900's.

I have never seen cotton grown nor chopped [weeds hoed out] but where are the cotton plants and the weeds they are chopping???

I have both seen it and done it, and you're right. I think they're breaking up dirt clods, or maybe hoeing out some of those roots and stuff. (Not that that's any more pleasant.)

They paid with their lives to move this country to its present place.