Beyond Forty Acres and a Mule

African American Landowning Families since Reconstruction

Debra A. Reid, Evan P. Bennett

• Publisher: University Press of Florida
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9780813043531
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

This collection chronicles the tumultuous history of landowning African American farmers from the end of the Civil War to today. Each essay provides a case study of people in one place at a particular time and the factors that affected their ability to acquire, secure, and protect their land.

The contributors walk readers through a century and a half of African American agricultural history, from the strivings of black farm owners in the immediate post-emancipation period to the efforts of contemporary black farm owners to receive justice through the courts for decades of discrimination by the U.S Department of Agriculture. They reveal that despite enormous obstacles, by 1920 a quarter of African American farm families owned their land, and demonstrate that farm ownership was not simply a departure point for black migrants seeking a better life but a core component of the African American experience.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Maps
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Foreword
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I. Historiography and Philosophy
• Part II. Farm Acquisition and Retention
• Part III. Agrarianism and Black Politics
• Part IV. Farm Families at Work
• Part V. Legal Activism and Civil Rights Expansion
• Researching African American Land and Farm Owners: A Bibliographic Essay
• List of Contributors
• Index