Following the end of the Civil War, most freedmen and poor whites in the South earned a living through A. the financial industry. B. the textile industry. C. construction and manufacturing. D. sharecropping and tenant farming.

The correct answer is - D. sharecropping and tenant farming.

After the Civil War, the people in the South continued to live in a manner very similar prior to the war, with one change. The change was that the black people were no longer slaves, and they were allowed to work for themselves and own property.

Most of the people were engaged in the agricultural sector, predominantly in the sharecropping and tenant farming. Those were methods that enabled the people to be able to have a decent earning and living, with the large land owners also being able to make profit from the land that they were providing for the people that did not had their own land.