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.
