The first African American leaders in the South Came from the ranks of antebellum free blacks who were joint by norther blacks to support Reconstruction. Blanche K Bruce an ex slave established a school for freedmen and in 1874 he became Mississippi’s second black U.S. senator. African American speakers who were financed by the Republican Party, spread out into the plantation districts and recruited former slaves to take part in politics. In South Carolina, African Americans constituted a majority in the lower house of legislature in 1868. Over the reconstruction twenty African Americans served in state administrations as Governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, or lesser offices. More than six hundred serves as state legislators and sixteen as congressmen. Southern Republicans, reconstruction governments eliminated property qualifications for the vote and abolished the Black Codes. Their state constitutions expanded the rights of married women, enabling them to hold property and wages independent of their husbands. The sought to diversify the economy beyond cotton agriculture and the poured money into railroads and other buildings projects to expand the regions busted economy. Southern Republicans brought the …show more content…
Sharecropping emerged because slaves that did not move away from plantations. IT was a product of the struggles of the Reconstruction and was in part was a good fit for cotton agriculture. Cotton unlike sugarcane, could be raised efficiently by small farmers. Sharecroppers’ freedom meant not only their individuals lots and cabins but also the school and churches. They could work on their own terms and establish rights to marry, read and write as they pleased, and travel in search of a better life. It even allowed some black farmers to buy and work their own land. Parents sacrificed to send their children to school and a few proudly watch their sons and daughters graduate from