Ransom and Sutch reexamined their earlier work on race and agriculture in the post-Civil War American South using new analytical methods and data. They found that African Americans faced significant challenges after emancipation due to racism, including very low rates of farm ownership, high rates of sharecropping out of necessity, and declining production of staple crops. Creditors also had power over farmers through debt, dictating crop production and trapping farmers in cycles of debt. While Ransom and Sutch demonstrated racism impacted economic opportunities, their sole focus on the agricultural South and small family farms left important questions unanswered about differences from the North and other sectors of the economy.