Land Gains, Land Losses: The Odyssey of African Americans Since Reconstruction

Abstract

The history of African American land acquisition and dispossession is a long and torturous story from the shores of Africa, through the Middle Passage, to enslavement in America in both urban and rural settings, and into the complexities of freedom under Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Prior to enslavement, Africans lived in agricultural settings. Despite the horrors of slavery, their cultural attachment to the land in their homelands would prove beneficial after emancipation. Developing an agrarian spirit and accumulating land at a rate beyond that of whites in the first few decades of freedom, despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles, black land ownership peaked in the early 1900s. Thereafter, African Americans began to lose their land faster than whites. This article explores the larger context of the South, the creativity African Americans showed in resistance and in declaring themselves human, the movement toward land ownership, and the ways and means by which African Americans lost their land. Narrative and data reveal the complexities and the lived experience of African Americans.