Andrew Lee Nicole Cardoza Andrew Lee Nicole Cardoza

Reverse racist land grabs.

In April, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make amends for a massive land grab rooted in white supremacy, though this remedy came almost a century too late (MSN). In the early twentieth century, Charles and Willa Bruce opened a Manhattan Beach resort that offered other Black families the opportunity to vacation under the Southern California sun. The white residents of Manhattan Beach were not pleased.

Good morning and happy Wednesday! Throughout history, communities of color have been forcibly removed from their native lands. But land disenfranchisement continues to this very day. Today, Andrew shares the history of racist land grabs and the importance of paying reparations.

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Nicole

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By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In April, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to make amends for a massive land grab rooted in white supremacy, though this remedy came almost a century too late (MSN). In the early twentieth century, Charles and Willa Bruce opened a Manhattan Beach resort that offered other Black families the opportunity to vacation under the Southern California sun. The white residents of Manhattan Beach were not pleased. The Bruce’s neighbors slashed their tires. The Ku Klux Klan set fire to the resort’s deck. These horrifying acts of white vigilantism weren’t what forced Charles and Willa to leave. In actuality, it was Manhattan Beach itself. The city government condemned the entire neighborhood around Bruce’s Beach. They then seized the resort through eminent domain. Though the city said that they did this to construct a park, this park never materialized. The Bruce family, forced from the city, was compensated only one-fifth of their asking price for the land they were forced to give up.

“This was such an injustice that was inflicted,” said LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, “not just on Charles and Willa Bruce, but generations of their descendants” (Yahoo News). 

This isn’t just the story of one bad town. We are often taught to think about racism in American housing as only a matter of federal policy, a peculiarity of Southern states before the Civil Rights movement, or a historical injustice whose wrongs have been set right. In reality, none of these things are true. 

It was not just segregated states, but cities and towns across the country, that actively excluded Black, Chinese, or other people of color from white neighborhoods. Some allowed non-white people during the day but prohibited them from staying after dark. There were over 100 of these so-called “sundown towns” in the supposedly progressive state of California alone (Yahoo News). 

And the legacy of racist housing practices lives on. For one thing, the historical robbery of properties like Bruce’s Beach deprives the descendants of the original owners of untold amounts of familial wealth. For another, the sundown towns of the past remain overwhelmingly white to this day. They’re no longer supposed to be able to exclude people of color by law. But in practice, the prevalence of anything from racial slurs (LA Times) to police harassment to private businesses’ refusal to serve Black customers serves the same purpose for these white enclaves. 

The LA County Board of Supervisors endorsement of the return of the Bruces’ land is significant because it could open the door for other Black families’ reimbursement for the historic theft of their property as well. Community organizations recently pressured another California municipality, Glendale, to publicly apologize for its status as a former sundown town. The town of Norman, Oklahoma, did the same (News 9). Things might keep changing, but only if we support community organizations to keep up the fight. 

The fight to return Bruce’s Beach to the family isn’t over. The California State Assembly will now need to pass additional legislation to approve the act. And this fight goes well beyond Manhattan Beach. The belated apologies of other former sundown towns may be meaningful, but they do not serve to compensate those whose ancestors were deprived the right to live within them. Racist housing policies in this country run so deep that the entire state of Oregon once functioned as one large sundown town, with a constitutional provision banning Black people from living or owning property within its borders. This language remained in the state constitution under 2002 (Ballotpedia). Given the way these historical injustices bleed into present-day inequities, Oregon scholar and activist Walidah Imarishi gave the reminder that, “If you believe in freedom, if you believe in justice, if you believe in liberation – now is the time to act” (OPB).

Malcolm X once said in a speech that “land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality” (Rev). Land is not only where we put family businesses; it is the stage of our entire lives. Land is the means by which we build safety and homefulness for our future and the futures of those who will come after us. These are all of the things which white supremacy and white people have stolen from people of color in the United States and it is well past time to right these wrongs. 

We need to reverse racist land grabs.


Key Takeaways

  • Many American cities and towns excluded people of color through laws and intimidation. 

  • The Bruce family is fighting for the return of land a California city once legally stole from their ancestors. 

  • Land theft not only affected its victims but their present-day descendants who lost the familial wealth that land would have helped create. 

  • People of color in the U.S. have been systemically denied access to the security and resources that the land provides.

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Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza Nicole Cardoza

Advocate for reparations.

Last Wednesday, February 17, Congress held a hearing on “H.R. 40: Exploring the Path to Reparative Justice in America.” The bill, referred to as H.R. 40, calls for Congress to create a commission to study the history of slavery in the U.S. from 1619 to 1865, and develop actionable steps to pay reparations. You can watch a recording of the entire hearing on PBS.

Happy Monday and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily. I was hoping to cover this issue last week on the day of the hearing, but I totally missed my own deadline with everything happening in Texas. It aligns well with Andrew’s article yesterday, which analyzed our relationship to reconciliation through history.

This newsletter is a free resource and that's made possible by our paying subscribers. Consider giving $7/month on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community. Thank you to all those that support!

Nicole

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By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)

Last Wednesday, February 17, Congress held a hearing on “H.R. 40: Exploring the Path to Reparative Justice in America.” The bill, referred to as H.R. 40, calls for Congress to create a commission to study the history of slavery in the U.S. from 1619 to 1865, and develop actionable steps to pay reparations. You can watch a recording of the entire hearing on PBS.

This is a marked point of progress on the long road to receiving federal reparations for Black people. In 1898, The National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief Bounty and Pension Association had 600,000 members – all of who organized to obtain compensation for slavery from federal agencies. During the 1920s,  Marcus Garvey organized hundreds of thousands of Black people to demand reparations. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr advocated for reparations as part of his book “Why We Can’t Wait” in 1964. The Black Panther Party called for reparations as part of their ten-point program.


In fact, in her 2019 public lecture at Columbia Journal of Race and  Law, activist, attorney, and scholar Nkechi Taifa emphasizes that, since the end of slavery, “there's been no substantial period of time where the call for redress has been neglected.” Read her full speech via Columbia and more examples of reparations through history via ACLU.

But in 1988, Congress passed legislation paying reparations to Japanese Americans that were descendants of those held in detention camps, along with funding dedicated to educating the history of Japanese internment and a pardon for all those convicted of resisting arrest. This action created a framework for approaching reparations for Black people in the political sphere. As a result, the H.R. 40 bill was introduced a year later, led by the late Representative John Conyers (MI). It’s named after “40 acres and a mule,” referencing the broken promise of 1845 to redistribute land to formerly enslaved people (learn more in a previous newsletter).  

The House and the Senate issued apologies to Black Americans for the impact of slavery and Jim Crow back in 2008 and 2009 (NPR), a hollow gesture without joint accountability or reparations for the harm. (They also apologized for the harm that happened “to Native Peoples” during this time). But otherwise, there’s been no significant progress on behalf of the federal government. 

Despite this, public perception of reparations is rapidly shifting. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ article, The Case for Reparations, brought reparations to the front-page in 2014 (The Atlantic). And racial reckoning of this year alone has swiftly shifted sentiment in favor of passing reparations. Reparations have been a persistent demand from major Black-led organizing groups. And last summer, the Human Rights Watch, along with dozens of other organizations, sent a letter to Congress urging the review and passing of H.R. 40 (Human Rights Watch).


Representative Shelia Jackson Lee (TX) took on this work after the passing of Rep. Conyers. She reintroduced the latest version of H.R. 40 on January 4, 2021. This pivotal step got buried in the news; two days later, white supremacists stormed the Capitol building – resulting in another slew of calls for accountability. It’s difficult to imagine what more is needed to make this case a national priority.

“
Reparations is repairing or restoring. It’s a formal acknowledgment and apology, recognition that the injury continues, commitment to redress and actual compensation.”


Nkechi Taifa, told to Donna M. Owens for NBC News

Proponents of the bill believe that this year, H.R. 40 has a chance. It’s likely the bill will pass the House but may falter in the Senate. But they hope that President Biden will step in, enacting this work as an executive order if Congress votes against it. The press secretary at the White House confirmed that Biden supports a study on reparations but didn’t explicitly note how he’d respond to the bill (Newsweek).

In the interim, we can also turn to state and local governments to pursue reparations in their communities. Over the past two years, in particular, states and cities have increased efforts to pay reparations for Black people and other people of color (Pew Trust). For example, Maryland has launched its own commission to consider financial commitments like free college tuition at Maryland schools, low home mortgages, and business loans without collateral (NBC).

It’s important to remember that conditions only worsen each day the government fails to act on reparations. A recent study found that reparation payments could have reduced the transmission and fatality of COVID-19 across the U.S. Researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Lancet Commission on Reparations and Redistributive Justice analyzed data in Lousiana and found that payments could have reduced between 31% to 68% of coronavirus transmissions (Social Science and Medicine). As of this past weekend, over 500,000 people in the U.S. have died from COVID-19 in less than a year. This is more than the number of U.S. soldiers that died in both WWI and WWII (NBC News).

The best time to demand reparations was yesterday. The second-best time is right now. We must hold our leaders accountable for a legacy of harm to protect our communities today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Last week there was a Congressional heraing on H.R. 40, a bill that calls for the government to create a commission to study the history of slavery in the U.S. and pay reparations.

  • Social sentiment on reparations is changing swiftly, particularly due to the racial reckoning of the past year

  • The work to federally recognize reparations for Black people has been happening for decades by politicians and organizers alike

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Andrea Plaid Nicole Cardoza Andrea Plaid Nicole Cardoza

Support Black farmers.

155 years. 64 trillion dollars.

That’s how long the families of 4 million enslaved Black people have been waiting for their 40 acres and a mule since stewarding land in the antebellum U.S. That’s how much money this property is worth. A promise often cited but never fulfilled.

As society reckons with compensating this missing generational wealth, today’s Black farmers still struggle to get and maintain their acreages. Black farmers “were a major agricultural force in the 19th and 20th centuries” (Modern Farmer). Ironically, this height of Black husbandry occurred in what Black historian Rayford Logan coined “The Nadir,” the period between 1890 and 1918 – some African American scholars extend the era to 1930 – when progress toward racial equity reached its lowest point.

Happy Sunday. Today we're joined by Andrea to look at the history of Black farmers in the U.S. I really enjoyed diving into the history of our migration across the country, and understanding the nuances of land ownership. I used to live on a farm, and miss that relationship to the earth. I hope you enjoy!

Are you following us on Instagram? We'll be hosting a conversation with Deepa Iyer on finding your role in movement work on Tuesday, January 19 at 1p EST. We're gathering questions in advance over on the ARD community. 

And thank you all for your support. This newsletter is made possible by our subscribers. Consider making a monthly or annual subscription on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website, PayPal or Venmo (@nicoleacardoza). 

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

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By Andrea Plaid (she/her)

155 years. 64 trillion dollars.

That’s how long the families of 4 million enslaved Black people have been waiting for their 40 acres and a mule since stewarding land in the antebellum U.S. That’s how much money this property is worth. A promise often cited but never fulfilled. 

 

As society reckons with compensating this missing generational wealth, today’s Black farmers still struggle to get and maintain their acreages. Black farmers “were a major agricultural force in the 19th and 20th centuries” (Modern Farmer). Ironically, this height of Black husbandry occurred in what Black historian Rayford Logan coined “The Nadir,”  the period between 1890 and 1918 – some African American scholars extend the era to 1930 – when progress toward racial equity reached its lowest point. 

 

The U.S. government signed the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which solidified the citizenship of newly emancipated Black people. These two laws gave Black people legal rights to claim 160 acres for a nominal fee, a deed, and if they stayed on the land for five years (Aeon). Most of them staked their claims on Southern lands under a corollary to the Homestead Act called the Southern Homestead Act (SHA) of 1866. This “land hunger,” as W.E.B. DuBois called it, drove approximately 200,000 Black people to own 20 million acres of land in the South and the West by the 1910s, in the midst of the Nadir (Mother Jones). 14% of that land was in Mississippi (The Atlantic). 

Some of the manumitted Black folks did not stay in the South. Instead, they sought their literal and figurative 40 acres in what’s referred to as “the American West,” but is actually where the government stole Indigenous people’s lands in its expansionist efforts. Famously known as the Exodusters, approximately 3,500 Black people – out of the millions who were freed and several thousand who moved west – were able to claim 650,000 acres of this land. Including their families, about 15,000 Black people lived in these homesteads (National Park Service). By the 1920s, the number of Black farmers peaked at 949,889, with their owning 15 million acres across the U.S (The Guardian). 

 

In response, white supremacy redoubled its efforts to divest these farmers of their acreage and their livelihoods. 

 
In practice, the Homestead Act and the SHA were insufficient to support freed African Americans through the bureaucratic process. It also often provided unfarmable land and never included the money to pay the filing fee (PBS). A few of the newly freed Black people, particularly Black men, ended up sharecropping or in chain gangs. According to The Atlantic, “even the most enterprising black landowners found themselves fighting a war of attrition, often fraught with legal obstacles that made passing title to future generations difficult.”

 

Ultimately, out of the 28,000 that filed for land patents, only about 5,500 Black people actually received them (Aeon). In contrast, the Homestead Act and the SHA ultimately gave away 270 million acres to 1.6 million U.S.-born and immigrant white people. As of 2000, 46 million of these people – about a quarter of the U.S. population – are descendants of these landowners  (Aeon).

White nationalist organizations like the Ku Klux Klan – some of whom were on city councils and law enforcement – forced many Black farmers off their land because, in some cases, the farmers’ growing wealth from their work offended the white townspeople’s sense of racial superiority. In other cases, the white people wanted the land itself. (Los Angeles Times)

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) aided and abetted in further depriving Black farmers of land and livelihood. The all-white department, which fortified its efforts to bolster American agriculture under the New Deal’s Farm Bill of 1933, routinely excluded the farmers by denying them loans or colluding with banks and land developers to steal the land (Modern Farmer). They also forced farmers off their rightful property and treated the farmers with openly disdainful hostility when they sought their services (The Counter). Between 1930 and 1950, Black husbandry “declined by 37%...and black tenants and [sharecroppers] declined by 32%” as this new iteration of the USDA and its policies favored corporate farming. This drove Black farmers out of business and off their lands, which accelerated the Great Migration, where Black communities moved into urban communities (Rosenberg and Wilson Stucki).

However, Black farmers resisted. The National Black Farmers Association and other African American agricultural landowners organized and sued the USDA in 1999 for racial discrimination, stating that “the department denied them access to federal farm-operating loans, disaster payments, information on farm programs, technical assistance, and other support that the agency is mandated by law to provide low-income farmers” (Yes Magazine). The USDA settled that case, known as Pigford v. Glickman, that year for $1 billion, with Congress appropriating more money to compensate for the farmers who filed late. This action, called Pigford II, brought the total to $1.25 billion in 2010 (Yes Magazine). However, The Counter investigated that this victory was, at best, a hollow one.
 

Even with these actions, only 45,508 Black farmers remain as of 2019. They own only 0.52 percent of U.S. agricultural acres and earn, on average, $40,000 per year, compared to their white counterparts’ average yearly income of over $190,000 (The Guardian). The old towns and homesteads settled by the Exodusters are fading away (Washington Post). Today’s reality is, according to NPR, “farmland is expensive, and farm real estate prices have been on the rise since 1969.” This means “young Black farmers with student debt or low credit scores face more challenges accessing the credit needed to put a down payment on viable land for farming” (NPR). The coronavirus pandemic is further devastating this population; many Black farmers, who tend to have smaller operations, have been left out of the billions of dollars in relief funds (100 Days in Appalachia).

 

Still, some African Americans, including younger people, find their way back to agricultural stewardship and find a way to give back to their communities. In the 1990s, Chicago media mentioned The Black Farmers Markets, which explicitly connected this segment of land cultivators with Black customers in the face of white hostility in the “traditional” farmers markets. (The Counter) This organization works in coalition with a vibrant network of other food-justice, racial-justice, and farm-justice groups such as the National Black Food & Justice Alliance, Soil Generation, and Community Food Lab and agricultural communities such as Soul Fire Farms and Black Dirt Farm Collective. 

 

The U.S. government – through the USDA – wants another chance to rectify its devastation. Senators Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and Kirsten Gillibrand co-sponsored the Justice for Black Farmers Act released on November 30 (Mother Jones). The new bill will allot $8 billion to buy land to give to Black farmers. It will also give money to “agriculturally based” historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other nonprofits to help them assist the USDA in finding land to purchase for the farmers, and provide the resources to support new Black farmers and Black agricultural collectives. 

Black lives matter – including the lives and livelihoods of the Black farmers who literally feed us. We need to return the favor.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Black farmers in the United States have a long, proud, and devastating history of landownership and in starting and maintaining a sustainable livelihood. 

  • Black farmers played a significant role in U.S. agriculture in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially during The Nadir, the lowest point in U.S. race relations.

  • Black farmers resisted land-grabs and racial discrimination on the federal and local levels.

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Thank you for all your financial contributions! If you haven't already, consider making a monthly donation to this work. These funds will help me operationalize this work for greatest impact.

Subscribe on Patreon | Give one-time on PayPal | Venmo @nicoleacardoza

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