大象传媒

When Black land rights activists were offered a 150-acre (60-hectare) plot in Amelia County, Virginia, they saw it as an opportunity toward righting a historical wrong.

Black Americans lost 90% of their lands across the United States during the 20th century, government figures show, because of factors such as predatory developers and a lack of access to the legal system and expert advice.

Now, an alliance of Black farmers and civil society groups wants to get an equal amount of property back.

鈥淲e were stripped of that land,鈥� said Kenya Crumel, a director at the National Black Food & Justice Alliance (NBFJA), which includes nearly 50 Black-led organizations.

鈥淟and is freedom. Historically in this country, so many policies were connected to land ownership鈥攜ou couldn鈥檛 vote if you didn鈥檛 have land,鈥� Crumel told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The echoes of that loss continue to reverberate today, she said, noting a huge impact on 鈥済enerational wealth.鈥�

The group is in the process of taking ownership of that Southern plot, which is being donated, as its first piece of land.

It ultimately aims to obtain between 15 million and 20 million acres across both rural and urban areas鈥攁n amount Crumel said may seem 鈥渞idiculous鈥� today but would match the estimated total acreage lost by Black households.

Upset Inequities

The project comes amid a growing focus on Black farmers and land dispossession, with projects working to help them get a fairer share.

White people own 98% of U.S. farmland, said Duron Chavis, a board member of the new Central Virginia Agrarian Commons (CVAC) nonprofit, which supports farmers of color.

鈥淭he gap we鈥檙e trying to fill is the land control, land ownership, land tenure gap that Black and Brown communities face not only in Virginia but across the nation,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur work is to upset that inequity and put land back into the hands of the most marginalized in our community.鈥�

The organization is fundraising to purchase land as well as soliciting donations.

This month, landowner Callie Walker will give away 75 acres of her family plot in Amelia County, Virginia, to allow farmers of color to set up homes and agrarian businesses, such as vegetable growing or beekeeping.

On a sunny May day, she surveyed the rolling fields and woodlands where she grew up, about an hour鈥檚 drive west of the state capital Richmond. A line of bright-orange surveyor鈥檚 flags showed where the property was to be split in two.

鈥淚鈥檝e watched other people try to start a farm dream on borrowed land or some other kind of land deal, and it seems like it always falls through,鈥� said Walker, a United Methodist pastor. 鈥淭he vision is to collect beginning farmers or dispossessed farmers and to get the housing in place that would allow them to try living and farming here.鈥�

Restorative Economics

The burgeoning effort is increasingly focused on urban areas, too.

The national racial justice protests of 2020 after the police murder of unarmed civilian George Floyd sparked a growing momentum around using urban lands to foster agricultural work by small-scale farmers of color. 

Those were also the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, when communities suddenly faced empty supermarket shelves fueled by widespread panic buying, recalled Erin PJ Bevel, co-founder of the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund. 

鈥淚t became very scary,鈥� she recalled of the confluence of Floyd鈥檚 killing and the pandemic. 鈥淭his was a crisis for Black people.鈥�

The experience not only increased interest in locally produced food, she said, but also brought new attention to the network of Detroit urban farmers who had been growing on vacant urban plots for years鈥攐ften in a legal gray area. 

Detroit has been buffeted by population losses for decades and has significant amounts of urban land left vacant.

While some of those properties have been available for a few hundred dollars, others in gentrifying areas have been priced at upward of $6,000, Bevel said.

Two years ago, on the June 19 commemoration of the end of slavery, a coalition of groups created the Detroit Black Farmer Land Fund to address the issue. 

Since then, the fund has crowdsourced more than $200,000, gathered donated land, and helped 70 farmers and farm businesses navigate city processes allowing them to buy vacant urban plots.

Bevel said she sees the initiative as an example of 鈥渞estorative economics,鈥� seeking to repair harm from injustices and help empower local residents to shape their own communities.

鈥淲e had no idea that this would blow up the way it did,鈥� she said, noting the project has spawned at least two similar funds in Michigan alone.

Urban Greenery

One of those the fund is seeking to help is Timothy Jackson, 38, co-executive director of Detroit Hives, a nonprofit that sells about 700 pounds (320 kilograms) of raw honey annually.

The grant will help Detroit Hives purchase two vacant lots. 

鈥淲hen you have ownership over your project in your community, it allows you to have a thorough investment鈥攜ou鈥檙e not just renting,鈥� Jackson said. 

Another local farmer, Erin Cole, runs Nurturing Our Seeds, a farm that grows 鈥渆verything that can be grown鈥� and sold more than $30,000 in produce last year. 

The farm started off as an effort to tame a vacant lot, and over the past decade has grown to eight lots鈥攕ix of which the fund helped the nonprofit purchase last year.

Other projects are also looking to develop urban spaces for Black growers.

The Central Virginia Agrarian Commons, for instance, is in the process of purchasing parcels totaling nearly 9 acres in the cities of Petersburg and Roanoke, said Ian McSweeney, director of the national Agrarian Trust. 

The plots are in areas officially designated as 鈥渇ood deserts鈥� where residents lack access to fresh food, he said. They will be used for growing, farm training, and as a base to help growers on Walker鈥檚 land and elsewhere connect with urban markets.

The NBFJA is looking to use its collective heft to buy up spaces that are already being used informally. 

鈥淎 lot of Black people are farming on vacant lots, and often they don鈥檛 own those lots, but you can negotiate with cities or counties to get ownership,鈥� Crumel said. 鈥淪o we want to take advantage of that and use our power as a group to negotiate those terms, and through that, mitigate loss.鈥�

This story originally was published by the , the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. This story is republished here as part of the SoJo Exchange from , a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. It has been lightly edited for 大象传媒 Magazine.