The history of farming for Black people in colonized territories is ripe with stories of liberation. Whether under European rule, or under the Jim Crow laws of the American South, Black farmers and environmental stewards have used their relationship with the Earth to fuel their fight for human rights. Below are stories of revolutionary Black farmers and land defenders who have used their gifts of stewardship and food cultivation towards the fight for liberation.
The History Discrimination
Against Black Farmers
Wangari Maathai: Freedom Fighter, Women's Rights Advocate & Nobel Prize Winning Environmental Steward
Sharecropping: How Black Farmers Ended Up in Unending Financial Debt to White Farm Owners
Fannie Lou Hamer:
Sharecropper and Civil Rights Activist
Articles
From Georgia to NYC: The Civil Rights Roots of Community Land Trusts
“New Communities Inc. arose not only as a way to give black sharecroppers a path to economic self-sufficiency and decent housing, but also because black Southerners were getting kicked out of their homes for associating with civil rights leaders or trying to vote. The land trust eventually grew to the size of Rhode Island, survived through racist acts of sabotage, but finally collapsed because it could not access credit because of discrimination from state and federal government entities.
The story, however, is one of resilience: In 2009, 24 years after New Communities Inc.’s foreclosure, it shared in the wins of a class-action lawsuit against the United States Department of Agriculture, the largest civil rights settlement in the nation’s history. With a $12 million payout, New Communities Inc. has bought new property in Georgia—a former slave plantation—that it is using for farming and educational purposes.”
Fannie Lou Hamer founds Freedom Farm Cooperative
“In 1969, Mrs. Hamer founded the Freedom Farm Cooperative with a $10,000 donation from Measure for Measure, a charitable organization based in Wisconsin. The former sharecropper purchased 40 acres of prime Delta land. It was her attempt to empower poor Black farmers and sharecroppers, who, for generations, had been at the mercy of the local white landowners. ‘The time has come now when we are going to have to get what we need ourselves. We may get a little help, here and there, but in the main we’re going to have to do it ourselves,’ she explained.”
“The land has always meant freedom, for black farmers especially. The freedom to do what they wanted, when they wanted. But it also created important relationships among them. When farmers didn’t have something, or didn’t know how to do something, they were able to create these networks. A rural context lends itself to that in ways that are different from an urban context.”
“Lack of access to legal services put Black families’ title claims in jeopardy. Lynchings, police brutality, and other forms of intimidation were sometimes used to force Black farmers off their land and still more land was abandoned as Black families fled racial terror in the South. From 1950 to 1970, Mississippi’s Black population declined by almost one-fifth as the white population increased by the same percentage. By the time Black people could exercise the vote in that state, they were a clear minority.”
