It would be blasphemous to say that the United States doesn’t have a dark past when it comes to racism and the treatment of African Americans in the early 1900’s. In Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry the reader sees the regressive tactics used by southern white men to keep the African Americans in their communities from progressing, economically and politically. One of the tactics that was utilized largely is called, sharecropping. Sharecropping involves the exploitation of African American families by offering them land to farm, as long as they pay the landowner an unregulated and always-changing rent fee. Taylor makes this a key point in her novel, along with a variety of other hateful customs like lynching and disrespectfulness, because of how detrimental it was to African Americans and also because of how prevalent it was in the south during the early 1900’s. Taylor’s incorporation of sharecropping and lynching in her novel are examples of tactics used by white racists in the South during the 1930s to limit African Americans’ success in the world, and by illustrating this in her novel, she shows the reader how these strategies were problematic and regressive.

During the Reconstruction Era in America (1865-1877) many of the southern states were still upset over the Civil War and were also looking for different ways to limit African Americans, as they did not recognize them as full citizens yet. Many different tactics were used to accomplish this and Taylor includes the majority of them in her novel. Sharecropping or tenant farming was one of the most regressive put in place. This was a style of farming where white plantation owners offered plots of land to African American families and in payment they took most of what their tenants grew. This in turn limited how much profit the tenants could make and also the owners could raise the price anytime they wanted further limiting any advancement for the African Americans. This went on well into the 1900’s and Taylor shows evidence of this practice being utilized many times. The Logans, who are the main family in the novel, we’re lucky enough to own their farm. This was unlike many of the other families who we’re going broke because of the conditions they were enduring (Taylor 3). According to Benjamin H. Hibbard, who wrote for the Quarterly Journal of Economics, at the end of the Civil War farm owners were left with less land and no workers. Therefore a new system was created in order to entice the African Americans to retake their positions working on the fields they had just left. With no homes, money, and for most no education they willingly took positions working jobs where they knew they could make no profit. (Hibbard 483) They were called tenants “but not a tenant in the same sense as that implied by the term in the North.” (Hibbard 485) Hibbard wrote his article in 1913 and that quote shows the problem that existed in the south. It gives truth to the fictional story that Taylor wrote and sheds light on a context that we have trouble understanding because of how different it is today in the south. Hibbard’s opinions, although they were formed a few years before the book took place, show that the Taylor’s fictional novel in fact does incorporate regressive tenancy tactics that were used during the time the story is set. (Hibbard 484) 

Another key tactic that Taylor talks about in her novel is lynching. Lynching is the act of hanging or beating another person to death, usually without an official trial and was more of a label than an actual action (Abbott 1). When it comes to lynching, it is almost always racially motivated” and in our society right now is a pretty dormant practice. Katherine Stovel wrote an article titled “Local Sequential Patterns: the Structure of Lynching in the Deep South, 1882-1930” that talks about how lynching was utilized during the post reconstruction era in American history. Like sharecropping, lynching was a tactic used to keep African Americans from advancing in society. Lynching differs from sharecropping though because it was not used frequently. (Stovel 844) Lynching was used more to scare African Americans in the community than it was to actually kill them. A mob going through the town with pitchforks and torches with the goal to hang a young man or woman from a tree is quite a scary sight and something that people don’t forget. On many occasions in Taylor’s novel, the reader sees that the characters are scared of trying to branch out and succeed because of the fear of being on the losing end of a lynching mob. This fear leads them to play the role of the subservient in order to preserve their lives. In Stovel’s article, she includes a graph that shows how many people were lynched around 1930. The number is surprisingly low at about 10 separate events. (Stovel 845) So why is this practice noted as one of the most heinous and despicable practices in the nation’s history? Just like terrorism in the modern day world, lynching was a violent, brutal, and sadly acceptable act in the 1930’s, and it sticks in people’s minds. 

Another key reason why lynching was so crucial to Taylor for providing historical context in her novel lies in the inaction of many. If the police didn’t investigate a majority of the crimes that occur in the modern day world wouldn’t people start-losing hope for justice? Yes they would. During the 1930’s African Americans saw little investigation being done when it came to someone being lynched. In their minds they knew the same effort would be made if they themselves fell to the same fate. Just like if the police stopped working today, the African Americans in both Taylor’s novel and in real life lost hope for justice.

Taylor’s novel leaves a very strong impression on the reader and shapes a very realistic and accurate context that is consistent with what actually transpired in history. The practice of sharecropping is one of the dominant injustices that occur in the novel. But just like in the novel tenant farming and sharecropping was one of the largest injustices African Americans dealt with in the early 1930’s. All of the terrible events that occurred in Taylor’s novel like the lynchings, the fights and the disrespectfulness stemmed from the fact that African Americans couldn’t afford proper clothes and proper means of living because the plantation owners wouldn’t allow them too. The owners had control and made sure a proper lifestyle could not be achieved for their tenants, but made sure their lives were full of luxury while using fear tactics and economic injustices to keep the African Americans down. Taylor made sure the reader understood that fact and according to Hibbard and Stovel she was correct in doing so. It is unsettling to read about racism in the South during this time period but Taylor wrote her story parallel to the events that happened in history and that is what allowed the reader to see from the context what history really has to tell about the 1930’s in Mississippi.
