In the late 1800s the system of share cropping in the south failed to

Free slaves economically--sharecropping forced former slaves back to the land they had worked and kept them indebted to the landholder.

The system of sharecropping meant for a piece of land to farm, a person would owe a portion of their crop to the landholder. This program kept blacks enslaved to the land not allowing them true freedom to leave and become ecnomically independent.