Why was land ownership so important to freed slaves once the war ended?

The
Southern economy was overwhelmingly agrarian and so land-ownership was the main source of wealth
in that part of the world. Therefore, if the freed slaves were ever going to take their rightful
place as equal members of society, it was essential that they be given sufficient land to be
able to provide for themselves and their families.

Unfortunately, the main
emphasis during Reconstruction was on providing wage labor for African Americans rather than
land. This represented a departure from the so-called "Forty Acres and a Mule" field
order proclaimed by Abraham Lincoln during the last few months of the Civil War. But then,
Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, was much less enthusiastic about any notion of racial
equality, and under his presidency, all of the gains in land-ownership made by freed slaves
during the Civil War were completely reversed, making it harder for black people to enjoy the
kind of independence envisaged in the "Forty Acres and a Mule"
proclamation.