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Here, the fertile soil nourished a cotton economy that tied the region to both prosperity, profound inequality, and violence. Before the 1930s, the rows of cotton plants were filled with the sound of hands at work—Black men, women, and children bent over under an unforgiving sun, picking and bagging the crop that defined the economy of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Image:

Black women and girls picking cotton, 1937.

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