The Significant Contributions of Black Farmers in America

some 15 million acres of land. It was an amazing feat. Yet by 1910, the loss of blackowned land began with the advent, for one, of Jim Crow laws in the South. It was noted that between 1910 and 1997 the black farming community had lost 90 percent of their property which, according to ‘The Atlantic’ magazine, was ‘conservatively’ estimated to be worth $350 billion in today’s world.

Contributions of Black Farmers, George Washington Carver & Black Farmer Lawsuit

The contributions of the Black farming community in the development of U.S. food and culture have also been exceptional. Most of the slaves in America came from West Africa and that culture is reflected, for one, in the food we eat today. For centuries, Black farmers have maintained the growth of these traditional foods, and many of the African foods we eat in the 21rst century came with Africans on ships during the slave trade. African origins of some of our foods include okra, gumbo, watermelon, spinach, coffee, yams, black-eyed peas, sorghum, and African rice. All of these foods resonate in the South today. African rice was critical to building wealth in the American colonies. For example, white plantation owners in South Carolina did not have a clue about growing rice. They opted to bring in slaves from West Africa where rice had been grown for thousands of years. It was African women who taught these plantation owners, of course, as women were the farmers, as was true throughout most of the African continent. Nevertheless, white South Carolinians still resonate from the wealth they accumulated thanks to the skills and vast knowledge of African female farmers.

No narrative on agriculture can be complete without referring to the agriculturalist and scientist, George Washington Carver, who played an extraordinary role through his work at Tuskegee University. Many say he saved the South. Carver recognized that the depleted soil from cotton production could be alleviated by a rotation of crops. Cotton, for example, should be rotated with legumes such as peanuts to fix nitrogen in the soil, and farmers today are largely attentive to this practice.

It is also important to note that the discrimination Black farmers experienced at the USDA was addressed by Black farmers when they filed the ‘Pigford Lawsuit’ in 1999 in what became the largest class-action lawsuit every filed against the US government. It resulted in more than a billion dollars paid to farmers in the lawsuit.

Summary

As they say in southern Africa, ‘the struggle continues’, but ‘thank you’ Black farmers for your huge contributions!

HEATHER GRAY has a history of activism on civil and human rights for decades in the southern region of the United States as well as nationally and internationally. She expresses this background and activism in media both on the radio and in articles. For more than two decades she served as the Director of Communications for the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund which is the primary organization in the United States devoted to and assisting Black farmers.

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The Transformation Begins Locally

By:Pastor William Smart

All the MLK Young Dreamers of Justice during the Christmas giveaway Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California took on a new beginning In of 2013. A new President, Pastor William D Smart Jr, and new leaders Alice Goff and Pastor William Monroe Campbell(to name a few) took the helm. The Chapter embraced programs that focused on education enrichment, employment enhancements and economic employment. It increase its activities around voter participation and youth development.

The youth development consists of creating the MLK Young Dreamers for Justice. They are youth between the ages of 11-17, that have learned the teaching of Dr King and apply them to their lives. It is multiracial and religiously diverse. The founders Jehoshua Jireh Smart and Ella Rosenson want to make sure the organization stays relevant by addressing issues that cause the leaders to be change agents in the world today. They have learned that it is important to help provide meals to the hungry and provide toys to needy children. However is just as important to change the systems that harvest a houseless population that is disproportionate Black. SCLC-SC has develop The Beloved Community of Los Angeles. It is a transformative movement which - through collaboration, reconciliation, and redemption - offers all people the opportunity to be the best that we together can be in kinship and community. With love, respect, courage, and nonviolence, the Beloved Community works bring together diverse communities to work in concert to eliminate poverty and economic inequality, dismantle systemic racism and white supremacy, ensure the human dignity and equality of every person, and achieve justice for all, where every person experiences freedom, safety and belonging. SCLC -SC in August 2021 and then in January 2022 gave expressions of the beloved Community in two zoom events.