Why was it difficult for southern free blacks to gain economic independence after the Civil War?

The main difficulty freed blacks had to overcome was that they emerged from slavery with no money to begin their free lives, they had to rely on sharecropping system that tied them to ex-slave owners again. The sharecropping system enabled ex-slaves to get tools and rent land to farm but they could not rise out of poverty. This system was designed to maintain ex-slaves in a social position close to slavery.