~As we are reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry we are coming across a lot of situations that seem unthinkable. In 1933 Mississippi, these situations were very real for almost all Black people, and a large amount of White people. I put some pictures below to help you make some connections.
~The picture below was a typical sharecropper's home. They were nothing more than shacks, and the sharecroppers had to pay rent which was taken out of their crop earning at the end of the year. If there was a flood, drought or something else that destroyed the crops, the tenants still had to pay for the seed and the rent, and many started the year owing money to the owner of the land. The Averys lived in a shack on Granger land similar to the one below.
~Another sharecropper shack is pictured below. This family is lucky enough to have a window on their shack.
~Sharecroppers are pictured below. Sharecropping was not that much better than slavery. At the end of the year, if the sharecroppers owed the landowner money, they could not leave.... if they left owing the landowner money they could be arrested, and often were.
~This is a picture of a sharecropping store similar to the Wallace store. Many sharecroppers were forced to buy their seed, clothing and other items from these stores or risk being kicked off the land. Note the signs! Do you see why the Logans were not allowed to enter the Wallace store?
