‘Crafting Sanctuaries’ Sheds Light on Black Experience in the South During the Great Depression
Chris Garlock | Published on 9/3/2025
The images in this exhibition focus on the American South, particularly the lives of
sharecroppers. Tenant farmers who worked land belonging to someone else—to whom they paid rent in the form of crops instead of cash—were often bound up in a cycle of indebtedness, thanks to high interest rates and unfair contract terms that made it difficult to break even, let alone get ahead. Beholden to landowners, many sharecroppers experienced a system that essentially prolonged certain conditions of slavery. Read more.