Black Farm Boys

The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America

Bobby J. Smith II

• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781469696935
  9781469696928
• eBook ISBN:
  9781469695792
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Agricultural Public Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

Founded in 1935, the New Farmers of America (NFA) was the first national organization for Black farm boys studying vocational agriculture at segregated public high schools across the South—and as far north as New Jersey. Sociologist and award-winning author Bobby J. Smith II charts new terrain in Black history by uncovering the hidden story of the organization, which grew to an annual membership of more than 55,000 members and empowered Black boys to challenge racial exclusion in agriculture by becoming farmers and pursuing careers in agriculture. But by 1965, the NFA had vanished—unraveled by a hostile takeover by the predominantly white Future Farmers of America (FFA). The NFA, and the generation of Black agricultural leaders it helped shape, were largely erased from the historical record.

In vivid prose, Smith confronts the haunting paradox of the NFA: an organization that transformed rural Black life yet remains almost entirely absent from American memory. Reconstructing the NFA’s rise, influence, and disappearance, Black Farm Boys reshapes the history of the Black agricultural experience and restores a vital chapter in the story of education, rural life, and racial justice in the United States.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents Page
• Illustrations
• Abbreviations
• Introduction The Untold Story of the New Farmers of America: An Adventure Through the Shadows of Black Agricultural History
• Chapter 1 1935: The Making of the NFA and the Black Youth Farm Movement
• Chapter 2 A Black Advantage Vision of Agriculture: The Fifth National NFA Convention in New Jersey
• Chapter 3 Camping While Black: The S. B. Simmons NFA Camp in North Carolina
• Chapter 4 Black Agriculture Teachers Matter: The Randolph NFA Chapter in Texas
• Chapter 5 1965: The Mysterious Disappearance of the NFA
• Postscript Writing the NFA Back into History
• Acknowledgments
• Behind The Scenes of black farm boys: A Brief Note on Methods
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index