Since the abolition of slavery, Black farmers in the American South have endured a long and arduous struggle to retain their land holdings. America was founded on the backs of slave labor and on the land of Indigenous peoples, yet both populations have routinely been disenfranchised by policies rooted in white supremacy. In doing so, the demographic makeup of the agrarian South has drastically changed.
Forcing Black Farmers out of Business
On January 12th 1865, as the civil war came to a close, Union General William T. Sherman issued a proclamation promising newly freed slaves “40 acres and a mule” out of 400,000 acres of land confiscated from Confederates. A year later, President Andrew Jackson terminated the order, forcing the freed population into a poverty-inducing system of sharecropping. Despite the failed promise, the enormity of the black population in the South combined with a “land hunger” among freedmen generated tenuous land ownership and small farm settlements.
According to the U.S Agricultural Census, in 1910, Black landowners owned roughly 15 million acres of farmland, primarily in the South. Today, that number has dwindled down to a mere 1.1 million acres. Over the past century, a myriad of federal programs marked by racist and discriminatory machinations forced 98 percent of black agriculture property owners off of their land, losses which amounted to 12 million acres. The federally sanctioned discrimination extracted billions of dollars from rural Black communities, stripping Black farmers of their land and livelihood.
In 1946, Congress established the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) within the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The FmHA set out to ameliorate the financial strain of small farmers through loans and credit. At this point, the USDA had exhibited a pattern of intervention in the farm economy, from massive purchases of surplus crops to stabilizing loan programs. Private banks could not beat the interest rates and loan terms presented by the USDA. As a result, the USDA became the sole lifeline for American farmers, specifically white farmers.
The USDA delineated the responsibility of approving loans to locally-elected, all-white county committees during a time in which Black people could not vote. This led to egregious acts of racial discrimination in the deep South, specifically Mississippi, where Black farmers were dispossessed of approximately 800,000 acres of land between 1950 and 1964. In 1965, the United States Commission on Civil Rights discovered that southern loan authorities within the FmHA administered larger loans to white-owned farms than to black-owned farms. Discriminatory loan practices in tandem with outright acts of violence and intimidation created insurmountable debt and led to foreclosures, tax sales, and partition sales on Black owned lands. The uncovered history of race-based lending within the USDA culminated in the 1999 class-action lawsuit, Pigford v. Glickman, in which Black farmers received a settlement of $1.25 billion.
In 2001, the Associated Press launched an investigation into the exploitation and theft of land directed against Black farmers in the agrarian South during the period between Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. They discovered more than 107 land grabs that resulted in 406 Black landowners relinquishing 24,000 acres of fertile farmland, most of which is privately owned by whites or large corporations today. The federally-funded operation to force minority landowners off of their land resulted in large pension firms and venture capitalists accumulating massive tracts of farmland that once belonged to African Americans.
During the post-bellum period, Jim Crow laws in the South legitimized anti-black racism and reinforced white spatial, political, and economic power. At the height of black landownership in the early 20th century, Black farmers were land rich and cash poor, but after white institutions effectively expropriated Black-owned farmland, many were left destitute. In 2000, the average price for an acre of land was 52 times greater than land prices at the turn of the 20th century. Through state-endorsed land theft, Black farmers were systematically denied access to financial resources and were unable to reap the rewards of increasing property values, thereby eliminating a vehicle for wealth-building amongst Black Americans and exacerbating wealth inequality.
Modern Efforts to Reclaim Land
Today, barriers to farmland acquisition and sufficient credit have proven to be cost-prohibitive for young Black farmers. In an attempt to assist prospective Black farmers, Northern initiatives have taken the shape of land cooperatives and investment funds. In New York, the Black Farmer Fund (BFF) provides capital financing for food entrepreneurs within the region to increase diversity within the sector, build community wealth, and rebuild a racially just and sustainable food system. The BFF is currently in its infancy and is seeking out investors and Black food actors in need of capital.
Additionally, Soul Fire Farm in Petersburg, New York is an 80-acre community farm for black and indigenous people of color (BIPOC) working towards eradicating racism and achieving food sovereignty. The farm trains young BIPOC to practice regenerative farming practices and equips them with the skills necessary to become farmers and food activists. Leah Penniman, founder of Soul Fire Farm, mobilizes farmers of color while providing affordable and healthy food to members of the community living under a food apartheid, a man-made system of segregation that fails to provide access to fresh food.
In recent news, U.S Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced a bill aimed at reversing land loss among black farmers and eliminating discrimination within the USDA. If passed, the landmark legislation, called the Justice for Black Farmers Act, would provide land grants of up to 160 acres to aspiring and eligible Black farmers, fund agriculture education at historically black colleges and universities, and install an independent civil rights oversight board to ensure the USDA properly handles discrimination complaints, a practice they have routinely dismissed and neglected. The proposed legislation still faces a long road ahead, but it has taken an important step towards reversing and correcting these historic wrongs.
Returning stolen land to Black and Latinx farmers is foundational in reducing our current dependence on industrialized agriculture and vital to preserving our ecology. By supporting BIPOC farmers and sustainable practices rooted in African-Indigenous wisdom, more people will have access to quality food and nutrition-related illnesses will decrease. If you are searching for ways to help BIPOC farmers, start by calling your representatives and encouraging them to support the Justice for Black Farmers Act. If you are in a position to donate, monetary contributions are greatly appreciated at Soul Fire Farm and the Black Farmer Fund. Through a combination of restorative federal initiatives and local grassroots movements, Black farmers will be supported from the bottom-up and top-down. Community-based outreach programs are essential for providing a support system for the next generation of Black farmers, while equitable government aid can provide financial relief that guarantees novice farmers a living wage.
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