Learn about safe haven communities.

The Freedom Georgia Initiative springs from a “desire to create generational wealth for our families” in a place where “restoration, recreation, and reformation” are possible. The ability to conserve family resources and enjoy ample rest and recreation has been denied to generations of Black families. As an explicitly pro-Black city in an anti-Black nation, Freedom, Georgia hopes to be a new start (Complex).

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily! A special thanks to our members of the military reading this right now.

Friday's email outlined the history of the Tulsa Race Massacre and the importance of paying reparations to acknowledge and account for the devastation and loss that its victims and descendants experienced.

Today is a story about what restoring and rebuilding can look like, highlighting a Black community in Georgia. As you read, consider: what does a safe haven mean for you? What does safety mean for you? And how can we become active members of our community for its growth and development?

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give monthly on Patreon. Or you can give one-time on our website or PayPal. You can also support us by joining our curated digital community.

Nicole

ps – some of the Take Action resources we provided in Friday's newsletter didn't work for some of our readers. If you want to take more direct action to support Tulsa, you can sign this petition or make a donation that directly supports survivors and descendants of the massacre.

TAKE ACTION

Read Ashley Scott’s op-ed about the Freedom Georgia Initiative’s goals.
Follow or support the Freedom Georgia Initiative (Instagram).
Learn about New Communities, an earlier effort to build community for Black people in Georgia.

GET EDUCATED

By Andrew Lee (he/him)

In December, the site of a soon-to-be-built Georgia city quintupled. Earlier that year, jogger Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by white men whose arrests would take two months of protests and public pressure (USA Today). More than a dozen families purchased land to create a new city free of white supremacy in the aftermath of this atrocity. With the December addition, the site of Freedom, Georgia now comprises over 500 acres (Fox 5).

Ever since Emancipation, Black land and property have been seized, looted, attacked, and, in the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street, firebombed from airplanes (American Prospect) (CNBC). In part, because it’s so hard to build intergenerational wealth without land, the average Black family has only 10% of the wealth of the average white family (USA Today). These practices have inspired generations of resistance. Freedom, Georgia, isn’t the first effort of its kind in the United States. It isn’t even the first initiative of its sort in Georgia.

In 1960, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) started organizing against the disenfranchisement of Black people under Jim Crow laws in the South. But Black farmers who registered to vote in SNCC voting drives faced eviction by white landowners. For many people, homelessness was the price of political participation (New Communities). To learn more about how Black people have been pushed out of farming, see our piece on Agricultural Education.

SNCC co-founder Charles Sherrod and his wife Shirley realized that control of land was an essential part of Black liberation. In 1969, the Sherrods started a collective farm in Lee County, Georgia, where Black people could live and work on community-controlled land without fear of retribution from white landlords. This farm, called New Communities, was the first example of a model of collective land ownership for community benefit called a community land trust.

“It really gave me a sense that I can do anything,” said Bummi Anderson of her childhood growing up in New Communities. “It was a group of people coming together really with the same ideals, the same hopes, and dreams for their children. We were a product of that, and so we grew up having the same sense of pride on who we were as African-Americans” (NPR).

Today, community land trusts preserve collectively-controlled, truly affordable housing across the country (Schumacher Center). New Communities understood that we need control of our homes and neighborhoods to struggle for justice. Today, the Freedom Georgia Initiative is walking a similar road as they plan utility infrastructure before moving onto the design and construction of the new city (Insider).

Co-founder Ashley Scott says that today’s Freedom Georgia Initiative was inspired by the realization that Black life was threatened even in cities with Black mayors and police chiefs, such as Atlanta. Scott says, “It was clear that developing new cities was necessary because these old ones, even with strong Black leadership, have too many deep-rooted problems…We figured we could try to fix a broken system or we could start fresh. Start a city that could be a shining example of being the change you want to see” (Blavity).

Those involved in the Initiative are the first to acknowledge that the road ahead will not be easy. “It is a long game,” Scott told the Insider. “Nothing is changed overnight.” Fighting racism by leaving existing American communities behind entirely to attempt to create a new one from scratch may seem a drastic move. But it’s nothing compared to the ways America has enforced anti-Black racism, exploitation, and death for centuries. From the horrors of chattel slavery to the violence of Jim Crow, from the assassination of civil rights leaders to the police murders and mass incarceration of today, generations of efforts to reform American white supremacy have failed to put it to an end. In the words of scholars Darrick Hamilton and Trevon Logan, “The most just approach would be a comprehensive reparation program that acknowledges these grievances and offers compensatory restitution, including ownership of land and other means of production” (The Conversation). Reforming a society so constitutionally incapable of reckoning with its nature and history may well be more far-fetched than creating a brand-new city from the ground up.

Key Takeaways

Families are planning a new, pro-Black city called Freedom, GA.
The ability to build intergenerational wealth and safety has long been denied to Black families.
There is a rich history of Black liberation movements encompassing housing justice and land sovereignty.

RELATED ISSUES

2/22/2021 | Advocate for reparations.

1/17/2021 | Support Black farmers.

5/12/2021 | Reverse racist land grabs.

PLEDGE YOUR SUPPORT

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

Nicole Cardoza 5/28/21 Nicole Cardoza 5/28/21

Advocate for reparations for the Tulsa Race Massacre survivors.

In 1921, a white mob rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s Black Wall Street, burning, killing, and looting until they destroyed one of the few contemporary centers of Black wealth in the United States. This May, after a century, the Tulsa City Council finally acknowledged the horrifying massacre and announced it would investigate paying reparations to Tulsa’s Black citizens. We have five days to pressure Tulsa City Council to adopt a reparations resolution that would go beyond mere acknowledgement and begin to make right past harm, discrimination, and violence that continue to affect Black communities.

Happy Friday! Next week marks 100 years since the Tulsa Race Massacre. Today, Sydni from The Amendment Project joins us to raise awareness about the event and action items to advocate for reparations.

Thank you to everyone that makes this work possible. If you want to support, give $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.

Nicole

TAKE ACTION

Sign the petition to demand that the Centennial Commission and City of Tulsa give 80% of the $30 million raised to the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre before the 100th anniversary.
Donate to the Justice for Greenwood Foundation to directly impact survivors and descendants.

GET EDUCATED

By Sydni Scott (she/her)

On May 19th, 2021, the Tulsa City Council announced a proclamation in acknowledgement of the Race Massacre. Then, on May 28th, they proposed a resolution that would establish a commission to study the necessity for economic reparations for Black Tulsa citizens. Now, we have just five days to pressure the city council into adopting a reparations resolution that would instill tangibility and practicable next steps for Tulsa residents beyond the platitudes of the proclamation. While it remains a controversial policy option, organizing our pursuit of racial equity around a reparative justice framework allows us to acknowledge and factor past harm, discrimination, and violence that will continue to have contemporary ramifications on Black communities around the world.

Black Wall Street – otherwise known as Greenwood – was a thriving economic mecca for Black Americans in the early 1900’s. The creation of Black Wall Street was primarily led by O.W. Gurley, who purchased 40 acres of land that he intentionally sold to Black people migrating “from the harsh oppression of Mississippi.” Gurley also gave loans to help other Black people start their own businesses. After O.W. Gurley, other Black entrepreneurs like J. B. Stradford who opened the largest Black-owned hotel in the country, and A.J. Smitherman, who was a publisher of the Tulsa Star and had an instrumental part in establishing the district’s socially conscious mindset. While the socioeconomic status of residents ranged from affluent to low-income, the money earned outside of the town would reinforce the community. Within Greenwood every dollar would change hands 19 times before it left. This town was a beacon of Black self-sufficiency and sustainability during a time for which both of those concepts were largely inaccessible to Black Americans.

On May 30th, 1921, Dick Rowland, a Black teenage shoe shiner from Greenwood, was arrested for an alleged assault on Sarah Page, a white woman. It was later determined that Rowland either tripped in the elevator or bumped into Page who then screamed which prompted the white store clerk to report the incident as “assault.”

Rowland was detained in a jail cell by a sheriff who had previously allowed a lynch mob to kidnap another Black man. The Tulsa Tribune printed an article calling for the lynching of Rowland. Upon hearing the news, a group of local Black men, many WWI veterans, came armed to protect Rowland from the steadily growing lynch mob outside the jail. The mob had swelled to over 2,000 people, intent on capturing Rowland. The veterans were outnumbered 100 to 1. Shooting broke out when a member of the mob attempted to disarm a Black veteran.

The next day a mob of white men and boys, including police and members of the national guard, rushed into Greenwood. They shot Black people on sight and looted and burned homes and businesses. As many as thirteen planes flew overhead dropping bombs and shooting from the sky. The mob destroyed 35 square blocks, including -- 1,200 homes, 60 businesses, a school, a hospital, a library, and a dozen churches. Over 800 people were admitted to the hospital. The mob stopped firefighters from fighting the flames and the National Guard arrested any Black people attempting to flee.

Some reports estimate that over 300 Black people died during these events, but it is impossible to know for certain because, as part of the local cover-up of the massacre, the sheriff banned funerals from taking place. Multiple sources saw large trucks carrying Black corpses out of town and there is currently an ongoing investigation to discover and identify mass graves. While some Black people were charged with rioting-related offenses, none of the estimated 1,500 white officials and citizens who participated were prosecuted for violent criminal acts.

City officials cleansed all evidence from records, including the Tribune article calling for a lynching and an article afterward saying, “the old N*****town must never be allowed in Tulsa again.” Not long after the event, the Tulsa Police Chief banned photos from being taken of the carnage as “a precaution against the influx here of Negros and other critics seeking propaganda for their organizations.” In the aftermath, the KKK used the massacre as a recruiting tool, sending postcards of the massacre all over the country. In the months following the massacre, the local KKK chapter grew to be one of the largest chapters in the country.

In the decades that followed, Greenwood residents would go on to rebuild a thriving Black community in Tulsa. This community would later be destabilized by eminent domain claims that stripped the town of infrastructure and resources. At The Amendment Project, we firmly believe that acknowledgement of harm is a fundamental prerequisite to necessary rectification and reconciliation. While one of the deadliest, the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre is not a unique phenomenon of racial violence against Black individuals and communities, and the coverup tactics have similarly been utilized to prevent genuine accountability for a century.

Reparations for Black Americans have long been relegated to the status of a political infeasibility, but the movement for reparations is on the rise both in the United States and globally. We ask for your support in encouraging/pressuring the Tulsa City Council to pass a reparations resolution that will acknowledge complicity and active participation in the 1921 Race Massacre and invest in the Black Tulsa community today.

Sydni Scott (she/her) is a 21-year-old student at Columbia University studying political science and African American studies. She is the founder and director of The Amendment Project, a grassroots, student-led organization that seeks to mobilize young people in the movement for reparations.

Key Takeaways

The Race Massacre of 1921 leveled a thriving Black community to the ground in just 48 hours. That town and its residents have since been the victim of racially discriminatory policies for the past century.
We currently have the opportunity to invest care and resources back into that community through a reparations bill being voted on by the Tulsa City council on June 2nd.
The movement for reparations is gaining momentum, and exists as a critical component of our conversation about racial equality.