Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights

Summary

Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights is a book by Pete Daniel, published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2013 (ISBN 978-1-4696-0201-1). Daniel is a historian who served as a curator at the Smithsonian Institution. The book was published with assistance from the Z. Smith Reynolds Fund (Daniel 2013, p. 8).

Daniel's thesis is that between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594 — a drop of 93 percent — driven not merely by structural shifts in agriculture but by systematic discrimination by USDA agencies (Daniel 2013, p. 1). He coins the term "passive nullification" to describe how USDA officials "pledged their support even as they purposefully undermined equal opportunity laws" (Daniel 2013, p. 23). The book examines three USDA agencies: the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS), the Federal Extension Service (FES), and the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA).

Core Findings

The Scale of Decline

Daniel documents that between 1940 and 1974, African American farmers fell from 681,790 to 45,594 — a 93 percent decline (Daniel 2013, p. 1). By 1910, African Americans held title to approximately 16 million acres of farmland; by 1920, there were 925,000 black farms (Daniel 2013, p. 28). In the 1960s, farms owned by blacks fell from 74,132 to 45,428, and black tenants declined from 132,011 to 16,113 (Daniel 2013, p. 27). If African American farmers had left agriculture at the same rate as white farmers since 1920, there would still be 300,000 left, per William C. Payne Jr.'s calculation (Daniel 2013, p. 27). (B-claim; empirical)

The USDA's Structure and Power

Daniel documents the vast scale of the USDA: in 1961, over 96,000 employees, some 12,000 in Washington, serving roughly 13 million farmers. By 2010, 113,000 employees served only some 2 million farmers (Daniel 2013, p. 25). Rodney E. Leonard noted the department had "developed almost into a shadow government serving mainly rural America" (Daniel 2013, p. 25). Under Secretary Freeman, "nearly all USDA employees were white, all supervisors were white males" (Daniel 2013, p. 25). (A-claim; factual)

Passive Nullification

Daniel's key concept is "passive nullification" — the practice of "pledging support even as they purposefully undermined equal opportunity laws" (Daniel 2013, p. 23). He documents that civil rights laws and Secretary Freeman's 1965 memorandum "only intensified the USDA's bureaucratic resolve to resist the concept of equal rights" (Daniel 2013, p. 23). By the 1970s, USDA leaders claimed "full compliance with equal opportunity laws even as they subverted programs to deny benefits to African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and women" (Daniel 2013, p. 23). (D-claim; interpretive)

The 1965 Commission on Civil Rights Report

Daniel cites the March 1965 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Equal Opportunity in Farm Programs, which "revealed that blacks had no input in policy, had no representation on county agricultural committees, were refused loans and benefits, and suffered encompassing discrimination" (Daniel 2013, p. 23). Secretary Freeman's April 22, 1965 memorandum urged staff to "put into effect with dispatch" comprehensive anti-discrimination policies, but the directive failed (Daniel 2013, p. 23). (A-claim; factual)

The Pigford v. Glickman Decision

Daniel connects the historical discrimination to the 1999 Pigford v. Glickman class-action lawsuit, in which Judge Paul L. Friedman found the USDA guilty of widespread discrimination against black farmers from 1981 onward (Daniel 2013, p. 26). Judge Friedman began his decision with the reference to "forty acres and a mule" — General Sherman's unfulfilled Reconstruction-era promise (Daniel 2013, p. 26). Congress finally appropriated funds in 2010, by which time "many of the litigants had lost their farms or died" (Daniel 2013, p. 26). (A-claim; factual)

USDA Agencies Examined

Daniel focuses on three agencies (Daniel 2013, p. 22): - ASCS (Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service): controlled acreage allotments and subsidy distribution through county committees dominated by white landowners - FES (Federal Extension Service): provided agricultural education and information, with segregated "Negro Extension Service" for Black farmers - FmHA (Farmers Home Administration): disbursed loans, with systematic discrimination in lending

(A-claim; factual)

Farm Failure Statistics

Daniel documents that farm failures were endemic: "in the 1950s, about 169,000 farms failed annually; between 1960 and 1965, some 124,000 failed each year; and 94,000 per year failed between 1966 and 1968" (Daniel 2013, p. 28). Between 1940 and 1969, the rural transformation "pushed some 3.4 million farmers and their families off the land, including nearly 600,000 African Americans" (Daniel 2013, p. 28). (B-claim; empirical)

Policy Recommendations

The book is primarily historical-analytical rather than prescriptive. Daniel does not advance specific policy proposals but documents the failure of existing anti-discrimination mandates. The Pigford decision and its aftermath are presented as inadequate remedies — "a good first step" per Judge Friedman (Daniel 2013, p. 26).

Nuances and Limits

Structural vs. Discriminatory Causes

Daniel acknowledges that "some scholars have argued that the structural shift from labor-intensive to capital-intensive operations explained the decline" of black farmers, while "others have argued that blacks fled the countryside of their own volition" (Daniel 2013, p. 28). Daniel's contribution is to document the USDA discrimination that was a necessary additional cause, but he does not attempt to quantify the relative weight of structural vs. discriminatory factors. (D-claim; interpretive)

Temporal Focus

The book "seldom widens from farm issues" and focuses on "the third quarter of the twentieth century" (Daniel 2013, p. 22). Earlier and later periods receive less attention. The Pigford case and post-1981 period are covered briefly as epilogue.

Geographic Focus

The book concentrates on the southern United States, where most African American farmers were located. Northern and western discrimination patterns receive less attention.

Georgist Connection

The book does not engage with Georgist economic theory. Its relevance to the Georgism wiki is indirect: it documents how discriminatory access to land and credit — rather than market forces alone — drove land concentration and dispossession. This bears on questions of land access, distributive justice, and the role of institutional bias in land markets.

Key Quotes

"Between 1940 and 1974, the number of African American farmers fell from 681,790 to just 45,594—a drop of 93 percent." — Pete Daniel, Introduction

"At the very moment civil rights laws promised to end discrimination, hundreds of thousands of black farmers lost their hold on the land as they were denied loans, information, and access to the programs essential to survival in a capital-intensive farm structure." — Pete Daniel, book jacket / Introduction

"This passive nullification consisted of a blizzard of bureaucratic obfuscation, blatant acts of discrimination and cronyism, violence, and intimidation." — Pete Daniel, Introduction

"African American farmers stubbornly refused to go quietly from their farms and eloquently articulated and bravely resisted the discrimination that threatened them. They ran for county committee seats, confronted county executives, applied for loans, and brought suits to challenge discrimination." — Pete Daniel, Introduction

"The civil rights and equal opportunity laws of the mid-1960s prompted USDA bureaucrats to embrace equal rights rhetorically even as they intensified discrimination. This passive nullification, voicing agreement with equal rights while continuing or intensifying discrimination, did not rely on antebellum intellectual arguments or confrontations but instead thrived silently in the offices of biased employees." — Pete Daniel, Introduction

"From its inception in 1862, the USDA was run by white men and, with the exception of the Negro Extension Service, excluded African Americans from decision-making positions." — Pete Daniel, Introduction

"The present system of ASC elections has perpetuated in office a group of people totally unresponsive to the needs of the small farmer and the sharecropper." — John Zippert (Louisiana CORE worker), quoted by Pete Daniel, Ch. 7

Bears On

• Land Dispossession — the book's central subject
• Land Tenure — historical patterns of black land ownership
• Agricultural Policy — USDA programs and their discriminatory administration
• Access to Land — barriers to land ownership for marginalized groups
• Distributive Justice — racial equity in land distribution

See Also

• Pete Daniel — author page
• Land Dispossession
• Land Tenure
• Agricultural Policy
• Pigford v. Glickman
• Access to Land

Sources

1. Pete Daniel, Dispossession: Discrimination Against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013). ISBN 978-1-4696-0201-1. — primary text
2. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Equal Opportunity in Farm Programs: An Appraisal of Services Rendered by Agencies of the United States Department of Agriculture (March 1965) — key source document cited throughout (A-claim; factual).
3. Pigford v. Glickman, 1999 decision by Judge Paul L. Friedman — cited for the class-action discrimination finding (A-claim; factual).