Station One:

Step One: Study the pictures and write your response on the handout for this station. Write a description of what is pictured. What are these a picture of? Why do you think that? Once this has been completed, open the folder for the remaining steps.

Station One

The pictures shown are not of slaves on a plantation, but rather, sharecroppers working on a plantation in Georgia in 1898. Your goal for this station is to learn what sharecropping and tenant farming were and what role it played in reconstruction.

Step Two: Read pages 307 and 308 in the textbook. Fill in the comparison chart on your handout.

Step Three: Read the sharecropping contract and answer the guided questions on your handout.

Step Four: Famous blues musician, BB King, worked as a sharecropper. Listen to the recording starting at 4:30. Answer the questions.

Step Five: Complete the TWO discussion questions.

Name ______Station _____

Step One: Write your picture response here.

Step Two: Using what you learned in your textbook, write a description of each in the table below.

Sharecropper / Tenant Farmer

Step Three: Read the Sharecropper Contract and answer the questions below.

1.  When and where was the contract written?

2.  What did the sharecropper have to do in order to use the plantation owner’s land, farming tools, and mules?

3.  Do you think this is a fair contract? Why or why not?

4.  What parts of this contract do you think caused the sharecroppers to be in debt to plantation owners?

5.  Does this contract seem more or less extreme than the impression you had of sharecropping after you read the textbook?

Step Four: Questions from BB King Interview.

6.  What reason did BB King state as why his family and others worked as sharecroppers?

7.  Summarize his description of the life and pay of a sharecropper.

Discussion Questions:
8. Did the textbook give an accurate portrayal of life under sharecropping?
9. How did the contract and the interview expand the description and your understanding of sharecropping?