Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement (Justice, Power, and Politics)

Synopsis

In May 1967, internationally renowned activist Fannie Lou Hamer purchased forty acres of land in the Mississippi Delta, launching the Freedom Farms Cooperative (FFC). A community-based rural and economic development project, FFC would grow to over 600 acres, offering a means for local sharecroppers, tenant farmers, and domestic workers to pursue community wellness, self-reliance, and political resistance. Life on the cooperative farm presented an alternative to the second wave of northern migration by African Americans--an opportunity to stay in the South, live off the land, and create a healthy community based upon building an alternative food system as a cooperative and collective effort.Freedom Farmers expands the historical narrative of the black freedom struggle to embrace the work, roles, and contributions of southern black farmers and the organizations they formed. Whereas existing scholarship generally views agriculture as a site of oppression and exploitation of black people, this book reveals agriculture as a site of resistance and provides a historical foundation that adds meaning and context to current conversations around the resurgence of food justice/sovereignty movements in urban spaces like Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York City, and New Orleans.

Copyright:

2018

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

208 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781469643700

Related ISBNs:

9781469663890, 9781469643717, 9781469643694

Publisher:

The University of North Carolina Press

Date of Addition:

12/17/20

Copyrighted By:

The University of North Carolina Press

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Nonfiction, Outdoors and Nature, Social Studies, Earth Sciences

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.

Foreword by:

LaDonna Redmond