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SIGNIFICANT DATES ON
BLACK LAND LOSS & LAND ACQUISITION
1861 Civil War begins.
1862 Congress creates the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
1862 Congress passes the Morrill Act (or Land Grant Act) to create
land grant colleges for agriculture and mechanical arts for whites.
1865 (January) Congress adopts the 13th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution to abolish slavery.
1865
(January) After meeting with freed slaves in Savannah, Georgia - in
what became known as the Savannah Colloquy - General William T. Sherman
responded to their pleas for land. In January he issued his famous Field
Order 15 setting aside a huge swath of abandoned land along the Georgia
and South Carolina coast for black families on forty acres plots. He also
said that army mules no longer in use would be offered to Black farmers.
This is likely where the "Forty Acres and a Mule" legend began.
Sherman never stated whether this was to be a permanent or temporary land
acquisition.
1865 (March) Congress establishes the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and
Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) providing for the allocation of “unoccupied
land” to freedmen (not to exceed 40 acres) - rather than 40 acres as
requested, Congress allowed the Freedmen’s Bureau to sell only 5 to 10
acre tracts of land to freed slaves.
1865 (April 9) Civil War ends.
1865 (April 14 ) Republican President Abraham Lincoln assassinated and
succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson (former U.S. Senator from
Tennessee).
1865 (May) President Johnson announces his Reconstruction Plan. The plan
calls for the Southern States to abolish slavery but does not offer a role
for Blacks in Reconstruction. The southern states are to determine the
role of Blacks themselves.
1865
(June) Some 40,000 freed slaves were settled on what was referred to as
"Sherman's Land" on some 400,000 acres of land in Georgia and
South Carolina. Much of this land was for rice cultivation. The Freedmen
created their own government, denied white access to the area and
cultivated their land.
1865 (Summer) President Johnson reverses Sherman's Field Order 15 by ordering that virtually all plantation lands given to freed slaves be returned to the original plantation owners.
1865
(October) A reluctant General O. Howard, Chair of the Freedmen's Bureau
assigned the task to tell freed slaves in Georgia and South Carolina that
they must return the land they had settled on to the original owners. Some
2,000 Blacks came to the local church on Edisto Island to hear his
comments. Howard said the freed slaves need to "lay aside their
bitter feelings. and to become reconciled to their old masters." They
responded "No, never!" "Can't do it!" "Why,
General Howard, do you take away our lands?" Petitions by Blacks were
drafted to protest betrayal. The first stated: " General, we want
Homesteads, we were promised Homesteads by the government. If it does not
carry out the promises its agents made to us...we are left in a more
unpleasant condition than our former....You will see this is not the
condition of really free men." (Eric Foner & Joshua Brown Forever
Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction)
1866 Congress passes the first Civil Rights Act over a presidential veto -
Johnson opposed federal protection of the rights of Blacks.
1866 Congress adopts the 14th amendment giving citizenship to
Blacks.
1866 The U.S. homegrown terrorist organization
known as the Ku Klux Klan is created in Tennessee by Nathan B. Forrest to
disrupt the progress of changing the framework of the south away from a
slaveocracy, and to engrain white supremacy into southern life. It spreads
into "nearly every southern state, launching a 'reign of terror'
against Republican leaders both black and white." (Foner & Brown)
1867 Congress passes a series of Reconstruction Acts abolishing Southern
State governments under Johnson’s plan. Election boards in each state
required to register all adult Black males and all qualified adult white
males. Johnson vetoes these acts and Congress easily overrides the
veto.
1868 Congress attempts to impeach President Johnson which is
defeated by one vote.
1869 Congress adopts the 15th Amendment making it illegal to deny males
the right to vote because of their race.
1877
The Compromise of 1877 ending reconstruction: The 1876 presidential
election between the Democratic candidate Samual Tildon and the Republican
candidate Rutherford B. Hayes is in dispute. The tallies in Florida,
Louisiana and South Carolina are questioned. Congress appoints an election
commission composed of 5 representatives, 5 senators and 5 Supreme Court
justices. Hayes wins but a compromise is agreed upon behind the scenes.
The Hayes will be recognized by the South if the federal government agrees
to no longer intervene in southern affairs and consequently remove the
Federal troops from the South. The Compromise of 1877 was the death knell
of reconstruction and laid open the tragic decline into the devastating
Jim Crow period in U.S. history.
1877 Reconstruction ends with Democratic control of the South and laws are
passed throughout the south denying Blacks the right to vote.
1890 Congress passes the second Morrill Act to create land grant colleges
for Blacks.
1890’s The “Colored Farmers National Club and Cooperative Union of the
United States” is created in Arkansas.
1896 U.S. Supreme Court passes Plessy v. Ferguson legalizing separate but
equal facilities for whites and Blacks which supports the “Jim
Crow” laws passed in the South denying Blacks their rights.
1910 peak of land ownership for blacks. Collectively blacks own 15
million acres of land of which 218,000 black farmers are full or part
owners. A steady decline of landownership begins after 1910.
1946 Congress creates the Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) to offer
credit designed to improve the income of the small farm owner often known
as the “lender of last resort”.
1964 The Civil Right Bill is passed to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations...
(US Gov't source)
1965 The Voting Rights Act is passed - By 1965 concerted efforts to break the grip of state disfranchisement had been under way for some time, but had achieved only modest success overall and in some areas had proved almost entirely ineffectual. The murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, gained national attention, along with numerous other acts of violence and terrorism. Finally, the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, en route to the state capitol in Montgomery, persuaded the President and Congress to overcome Southern legislators' resistance to effective voting rights legislation. President Johnson issued a call for a strong voting rights law and hearings began soon thereafter on the bill that would become the Voting Rights Act.
(US Gov't source)
1967 Federation of Southern Cooperatives founded to assist in the economic
development of black farmers and the rural poor.
1969 James Forman releases "black manifesto' In Detroit calling for
$200 million for a southern land bank.
1973 "Only Six Million Acres" published by Black Economic
Research Center under leadership of Bob Browne. Browne wan others
were concerned at the pace of land being lost by the Black community.
1973 Emergency Land Fund (ELF) formally organized to address the issue of
black land loss. Bob Browne was the founder.
1981 With a grant from the United States Department of
Agriculture, the Emergency Land Fund conducts its seminal research on heir
property in the Black community in the rural south. The study is known as
"The Impact of Heir Property on Black Rural Land Tenure in the
Southeastern Region of the United States." It was found that one of
the primary reasons Blacks loose land is because of heir property - land
being owned by the family - which can more easily be absconded by
developers or the government.
1982 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights reports one of the primary reasons
blacks lose land is because of discrimination from the USDA and that the
FmHA mantra of being the "lending institution of last resort"
did not apply to Black farmers.
1985 ELF merges with the Federation to become the Federation Of Southern
Cooperatives /Land Assistance Fund.
1990 Federation/LAF successfully leads efforts to pass the first
"Minority Farmers Rights Bill" (section 2501 ) to provide
technical assistance to black farmers.
1990 The first law suit filed against the federal government on behalf of
all black farmers by the Farmers Legal Action Group with the assistance of
the Federation/LAF.
1992 the US Census Of Agriculture reports there are 18,000 black farmers
left owning 2.3 million acres.
1992 the Federation/LAF leads the first black farmer "Caravan to
Washington" to address the plight of black and other minority
farmers.
1997 USDA holds listening forums to hear from minority farmers.
1997 USDA’s Civil Rights Action Team develops 92 recommendations to end
discrimination within USDA.
1997 second law suit on behalf of black farmers' filed against the federal
government.
1998 Coordinating Council of Black Farm Groups created.
1998 (October 9) U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman designates
Pigford V. Glickman as a “class”.
1999 (January 5) Consent decree arranged between attorneys for
farmers and USDA attorneys - attorneys agree to settlement in class action
suit filed by farmers. Attorney J.L. Chestnut in Alabama was the only black attorney serving as class counsel.
1999 (March 2) U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman holds fairness
hearing on Consent Decree in the U.S. District Court.
2004 (August 15) Bob Browne dies - founder of ELF.
2008 (September 30) Attorney J.L Chestnut dies - class counsel in the Pigford v Glickman class action lawsuit.
2008 Congress passes the Farm Bill which includes provisions for "late" filers in the Pigford lawsuit to proceed with the claims process - it is known as "Pigford Two"
2009 President Barack OBama's Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack issues a 14 point statement on civil rights initiatives at USDA entitled "A New Civil Rights Era for USDA".
2010 December 8, 2010 President Barack Obama signs bill authorizing $1.25 billion dollars in appropriations for the Pigford II lawsuit after Congress approved the legislation in November 2010.
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