Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement

Justice, Power, and Politics

by Monica M. White, LaDonna Redmond (Foreword)

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Food, Race, Social Justice, Environment, Agriculture

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 6, 2018

Reviews

[caro · Rating 5 out of 5]

i couldn’t sleep bc of how inspired Freedom Farmers got me. i consistently talk abt the gaps within the dietetics curriculum. i now know that the principles established in Freedom Farmers specifically collective agency and community resiliency will be a founding pillar in my teaching of community nutrition as a student and future professor. Incorporation of the examples listed in the text are necessary in the discipline. aHhhhh

[Nicoleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this for a book club. While my enjoyment level of this was about a 4, this is due to the academic tone and nature. But that is the point of the book. I did find the topic and content fascinating and important. I would love to know about and read an author's historical fiction retelling about this, that would be fun. Overall, well worth the read.

[Robin Tobin (On the back porch reading) · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Full disclosure: the author is a former colleague and a dear friend.).

This is a fabulous book that corrects the way the historical record has erased black Americans from narratives of urban agriculture. The chapter on Fannie Lou Hamer is amazing and should be required reading for anyone who studies urban agriculture.

[Jessi Riel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely superb. Monica M. White provides a rich history of Black cooperative farm movements and comprehensively discusses the context, real-time impacts, and historical importance of these movements, all the while keeping her book concise and accessible. I’ve learned so much from my first read-through, and I look forward to continuing to use this book as a reference for food security work, cooperative models, and more.

[Nicole Selden · Rating 4 out of 5]

so enlightening. never realized how much black farmers suffered and how much they impact entire black food justice. I had to read this for a research paper but it was super interesting

[Abby Rosenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

God damn god damn, this book is so necessary!!! Food sovereignty & food justice/climate justice goes wayyyyyy beyond the present -- I really, really appreciate having a much deeper knowledge of & appreciation for the history of Black farming resistance, self-sustenance, and the fight for liberation for/with the land. Fannie Lou Hamer was a fucking badass woman, and this has pushed me to do a very deep dive into learning more about her & other Black/Indigenous/Latina/non-white women who have transformed our food systems/work to do so now. The last chapter about Detroit will forever hold a special place in my heart -- what a beautiful & resilient & powerful city full of Black Detroiters who remain committed to their land. It was in this chapter that the ties between Black land stewardship & Indigenous sovereignty/stewardship were the strongest -- they are so intrinsically tied together, yet have been forced to be pitted against each other for so long.

"Members of DBCFSN and their allies have decided that instead of giving the city's eulogy, they will turn decay into compost, building on what remains from the earlier iteration of the city by transforming available land, vacant lots, and ingenuity into gardens full of music, food, art, education, and celebration of the future...what makes these changes significant is that those who chose to stay in the city are creating the neighborhoods and the spaces they need, mostly indepdently of local government." (pg. 140)

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was unexpectedly fantastic. It has completely reframed my understanding of both agriculture and Black American history in a way that better incorporates Black farmers. It made me think differently about George Washington Carver as someone with a focus on restorative, sustainable agriculture.

[sistaotey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scholarly excellence as well as engaging. Don't do Food Justice work without reading it.

[Brinn Hammond · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book read it for class

[Pam Dawling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will fill the gaps in your knowledge of Black US agricultural history, with a mix of narrative and evaluation. Here you can read about people such as Fannie Lou Hamer, who set up the Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), offering a way for Black people of limited means to pursue self-reliance, health and a supportive community. Cooperatives offered an alternative to another wave of northern migration for African Americans – a way to stay in the South and help each other build a sustainable lifestyle.

It’s good to celebrate paths of hope, while also acknowledging the things that need to change. Freedom Farmers provides an uplifting perspective, showing agriculture was not only a site of oppression and exploitation of Black people, but also one of proactive political resistance and cooperative effort. Land access gives people the power to heal themselves, much more directly than food pantries and cooking lessons do.

Dr Monica White is assistant professor of environmental justice at the University of Wisconsin. This is an academic book, so you’ll need to navigate some sociological terms, and I recommend you persevere even if this is challenging, in order to learn more of the important history of agriculture in the South. The book divides into two parts, starting with the intellectual traditions in Black agriculture, specifically Booker T Washington, George Washington Carver (my sweet potato hero) and WEB Du Bois. Part 2, Collective Agency and Community Resilience in Action, covers four specific cooperatives, the Freedom Farm Cooperative, North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Dr White’s framework of Collective Agency and Community Resilience (CACR) covers proactive approaches that build knowledge, skills, community and economic well-being. Collective agency is an intrinsic part of social activism. Community resilience refers to adaptation to adversity: social organization to adjust, withstand and absorb disturbance, and reorganize for best results.

Martin Luther King Jr pointed out that the broken promise of the US government to provide 40 acres and a mule to freed people happened at the same time that millions of acres of land (stolen from Indigenous people) were given to white people in the West and Midwest.

In 1875, African Americans owned 3 million acres of land. Five years later, 8 million. By 1900, 12 million. The Tuskegee Institute welcomed its first class in 1881. Students worked on the two farms as part of paying tuition. In 1902, the USDA established the Cooperative Farm Demonstration Service, which offered information on modern farming methods. The Negro Cooperative Farm Demonstration Service sent farm and home demonstration agents into the field. The value of Black-owned land in the South increased more than sevenfold by 1920.

George Washington Carver was a brilliant man with advanced botany degrees. He was committed to land conservation, plant breeding, scientific approaches to pests and disease. He left his plantation childhood at age 11, and made his way from Missouri to Iowa, where he enrolled in Simpson College, and later the college that became Iowa State University. There he earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in botany, and became their first Black faculty member.

Carver accepted Booker T Washington’s 1896 offer of a job on the Tuskegee faculty although it entailed a loss of income. He said “The primary idea in all my work was to help the farmer and fill the poor man’s dinner pail . . . My idea is to help the “man furthest down”.

WEB Du Bois studied race, inequality, Black political participation and social movements including agrarian production. He was convinced that cooperatives were the key to freedom. Du Bois’s theory of the power of cooperatives was that the key is distribution, rather than production.

Du Bois established the Negro Cooperative Guild to promote cooperation among African Americans, beginning with basic needs (food, clothing, jobs) and moving on to economic power.

Part Two tells of four specific organizations, one a single farm cooperative, one a county-wide program, one a regional federation of cooperatives and the last one an inner-city food security network.

Fannie Lou Hamer, a sharecropper and domestic worker, founded Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC) in Sunflower County, MS in 1967, to fight poverty among displaced farm workers. Hamer wanted an opportunity for Black farmers to live off the land, as an alternative to a second wave of northern migration. “Someone with a pig and a garden need not starve to death.”

Between 1950 and 1960, the county population decreased by 20% as African Americans moved to northern cities to find work. Between 1960 and 1970, another 20% left.

Hamer’s boss fired and evicted her when she refused to withdraw her voter registration. She articulated the link between voter suppression by farm employers and starvation and homelessness. Her way to fight back was to set up a cooperative farm, providing workers with food, housing and the freedom to vote. Freedom Farm was a Black-led organization, with a triple focus on affordable, safe housing; a business incubator providing training; and an agricultural cooperative meeting the food needs of the most vulnerable people in the county. Thirteen of the first 40 acres were used to collectively grow subsistence vegetables. Freedom Farm was also a social and political organizing center, supporting activists.

In 1969, 50 pigs were donated to the farm as the “starter funds” for the “Bank of Pigs”. Families kept the sows and took them to the facility that kept the boars. From each litter, the family paid two piglets back into the pig bank. Heifer International (in its first US-based project) provided training and help. By 1973, more than 865 families were beneficiaries of the pig bank, which provided them with meat and income.

In 1971, Freedom Farm put down a deposit on 640 acres of additional land to build more housing, and the next year, the US Farmers Home Administration (FmHA) gave funding for 80 self-build houses, to include electricity and indoor plumbing. By 1972, their crops were feeding 1600 families. 540 acres were used for grazing cattle and a catfish cooperative. Two years later, they added 600 acres of cash crops of cotton, soybeans, wheat and cucumber. The income paid the mortgage on the land.

In 1973, FFC had 600 acres in crops, 300 families receiving livestock from the pig bank, 70 families living in affordable housing, and several people benefiting from college and business funds. Freedom Farm was a major employer in Sunflower County. As well as farm and office jobs, FFC started two sewing cooperatives. FFC paid all employees $10/day, often with housing, food and services in addition.

After four years of growing success, Freedom Farm Cooperative started to unravel in 1971. There were several tornadoes, leading to next year’s seed money being used for disaster relief. Donor funds started to dry up. The social service programs were wound up in order to focus on making the farming financially viable. A disastrous sequence of droughts and floods added to the troubles, and the seasonal employees could not be paid. The pig bank was closed as it was not paying its way. In 1974, FFC’s business manager died suddenly and Hamer became ill. In 1976 FFC had to sell its land to pay overdue taxes. The enterprise could not continue but many people had had their lives changed for the better. As Monica White says “FFC created an oasis of self-reliance and self-determination in a landscape of oppression maintained in part by deprivation.” We should not undervalue their successes.

Compared to the very local efforts of FFC, the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative (NBCFC) was a county-wide enterprise. The decline in need for farmworkers had left farmers unemployed, malnourished, ailing and in poor housing. Unfortunately, the area was a sea of racism.

In December 1967, sixty-four residents of Bolivar County, Mississippi started the NBCFC. They were mostly sharecroppers, tenant farmers, day laborers or domestic workers. Two Black landowners allowed the cooperative to use their land and another loaned his tools. For the first year, no one received pay, so members worked other jobs simultaneously. At the end of the first year, 953 families had joined and 120 acres were prepared for planting. Over one million pounds of produce was raised and distributed. The area was divided into 12 sections, each with two representatives on the board of directors.

Cooperative members who worked in the fields typically earned $4 cash per day plus $6 in produce. NBCFC created a Food and Nutrition Cooperative Project. They prioritized protein vegetables, then greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, okra and cucumbers. Starchy vegetables were at the bottom of the list, just above melons. They began processing their own vegetables because it was obvious to them that they lost value by selling their produce to distributors and then buying vegetables at market.

The third example in this book is on a regional scale: The Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC). Cooperatives had sprung up throughout the South, from Texas to Virginia, organized by the disadvantaged: Blacks, Latinx and some whites, working together in mutual aid. Some were farming, others manufacturing, sewing or consumer cooperatives. The FSC began in 1967 with twenty-two representatives of southern rural cooperatives as an umbrella cooperative for the Southeast with the goals of raising funds, providing technical assistance and developing resources.
By 1974, 134 cooperatives had joined FSC from 14 southern states. Through the Small Farmers School Program, FSC staff provided training in agricultural technology, hoophouses, irrigation systems, new crops, farm management, energy consumption and business decisions. They gave help to illiterate farmers with application forms, and made loans to members through an interest-free Revolving Loan Fund.

By combining orders and maximizing savings, FSC broke the stranglehold that distributors of seeds and fertilizers had on farmers (charging high prices because there was no competition). Farmers also cooperated to plan their crops so that different farmers brought in cucumbers, say, in different weeks of the season.

FSC included cooperatives for aquaponics, shrimping, and catfish farming, as well as flowers, transplants and shrubs. In 1979 FSC expanded by collaborating with two other organizations, the Emergency Land Fund (addressing the issue of Black land loss) and the Southern Cooperative Development Fund (providing emergency loans to struggling co-ops).

FSC also trained agricultural workers to plan and build housing for displaced farmers. They operated the Black Belt Family Health Care Center in Epes, Alabama, an ambulatory preventative health care cooperative providing services on a sliding scale. FSC also ran the Right to Read Program, including in-home literacy classes for 500 members and small group classes. Incarcerated people got literacy training. There were also mini-libraries, GED training and vocational training. They developed credit unions, protected and expanded Black landholdings, and provided book-keeping and financial services. They advocated on policy issues for low-income cooperators.

There was white backlash. Some white business owners and white political officials had no moral qualms about destroying Black cooperatives. A group of Black farmers in 1965 formed the Grand Marie Vegetable Cooperative of Sunset, Louisiana. The low price they were getting for their sweet potatoes was about to force them off the land. They banded together and shipped $102,000 worth of sweet potatoes to market in 1971. In 1972 a group of white growers asked the bank to stop the line of credit to Grand Marie. Their checks bounced, leaving them in a precarious financial situation.

In 1979, a federal grand jury in northern Alabama ordered FSC to provide all documents relating to federal funding for the past four years. The 18-month investigation did not lead to any charges, as they found no wrongdoing. It was an exercise in grinding down FSC. Defending itself cost FSC $20,000 in legal fees, and lots of wasted time. There are other examples of such harassment. Alabama state troopers stopped a fleet of refrigerated cooperative trucks, keeping them at the side of the road until they ran out of fuel, causing the produce to rot after several hours in the Alabama heat.

Fifty-three years later, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives is still organizing Black cooperatives in the southern states, running a land assistance fund, a food box program, rural training, networking opportunities, technical assistance, and more. They accept donations on their website.

The next chapter, about the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), tells the stories of some of the descendants of those who migrated north, specifically to Detroit, for work. Sadly economic decline arrived there too, starting with the Detroit Rebellion of 1967, resulting in white flight and car manufacture moving elsewhere. Black flight followed in the early 2000s. Knowing that returning to growing food was an effective strategy of survival and resistance, the remaining Black community resisted pressure to leave and formed agricultural communities.

Following the 2008-2010 foreclosure crisis, the population shrank further and public services were cut again. DBCFSN mobilized the Black community with conversations about food sovereignty and food security, mutual aid, collective wealth-building and general political education. Today, Detroit is a major center for urban farming and community food systems.

In 2008, D-Town Farm grew out of the school garden at the Nsoroma Institute, when the city of Detroit asked DBCFSN to consider a 2-acre space in Meyers Tree Nursery, Rouge Park. Five more acres were added in 2011. By 2016, D-Town Farm was producing over 30 different vegetables, as well as mushrooms and honey. Hoophouses and a large composting operation are included. They have an annual internship program and a volunteer program, as well as a paid manager and staff. Their produce is sold mainly at city farmers markets.

The Black urban farming movement encourages us to “dig deeper,” pastn the traumas of enslavement, sharecropping and exploitative tenant farming, back to roots as people of the land. This shows food production as an aspect of self-reliance, collective resilience and resistance. Aside from food resources, cooperatives offer information, community support, physical exercise, and solutions to problems in politics, education, housing and policing. Three strategies: sharing (resources, ideas, labor and solutions), participation in decision-making (politics) and economic autonomy, are the building blocks of community resiliency.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Freedom Farmers explores the often overlooked or ignored history of black farmers and farming/food cooperatives that were formed in the time of the civil rights movement in order to help black families survive and thrive in the South. Monica White starts by showing how three influential black men started this agricultural freedom movement - Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. Du Bois. Then she goes into the history of cooperative farming movements giving another three examples - Fannie Lou Hamer's Freedom Farm Cooperative, North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative, and The Federation of Southern Cooperatives (the only one still in operation at the time of publication). The last chapter focuses on the history and current urban farming movement in Detroit, Michigan. The whole book shows the importance of food freedom. When you are not starving and have access to healthy, quality food you can then focus on other issues. The book also highlights some of the shameful historical parts of the South where white people worked overtime to keep black people "in their place." I was shocked to read about white, Southern government officials purposely stopping federal funding to some of these cooperative agencies - funding that was specifically for poverty issues. That's why books like this are important so we can see how those parts of history have shaped the way things are today. I will say my only complaint with this book was that the tone was very scholarly. It was not a super-easy read even though it's only 147 pages. I saw a few reviews that said they wished she had included more personal stories from people in the cooperatives and I would have liked that as well. I think more personal stories would have made it more readable as well. But, overall and important book about food and freedom.

Some quotes I liked:

"[George Washington Carver] was what today would be called a permaculturist, one who believes in the value of developing 'Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fibre, and energy for provision of local food needs.' Carver's work used sustainable products from organic, natural sources...In an era when few appreciated its significance, Carver waxed eloquent about composting..." (p. 46-47)

"One measure of the respect Carver's inventions gained in their day is that Henry Ford asked him to assist with the development of peanuts and soybeans to create fuel, paint, and plastics for the burgeoning automobile industry. Thomas Edison also offered Carver a six-figure salary to move to New Jersey to work in his labs. In a demonstration of his dedication to his work with black farmers, Carver refused, preferring to stay at Tuskegee." (p. 49)

"Down where we are, food is used as a political weapon. But if you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, you can feed yourself and your family, and nobody can push you around. If we have something like some pigs and some gardens and a few things like that, even if we have no jobs, we can eat and we can look after our families. - Fannie Lou Hamer" (p. 65)

"While it is important to analyze the problems that ultimately led to the demise of the [Freedom Farm Cooperative] in 1975, we should not undervalue its successes. Given its time, scope, intention, and liberatory vision, as well as the fact that this vision was enacted within a pervasively oppressive and racially hostile environment, the movement - while relatively short lived - was a manifestation of self-reliance and the capacity of a community to come together for the provision of food, housing, shelter, education, health care, and employment. This radical experiment constituted an important chapter in the black freedom movement." (p. 87)

[Shannon Henry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my ‘Food and Society’ class. Thought it was really interesting, especially chapter 5 about Detroit and their food sovereignty efforts.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Freedom Farmers is a great introduction to the use of Agriculture to resist the oppressiveness of white power in America, and how through agricultural resistance, black Americans have been able to build power and influence and infrastructure in a system that to-this-day continues to oppress minorities and black power.

The first third of the book is sharing the teachings of the historical (20th century) figures, Booker T Washington, WEB du Bois, and George Washington Carver, whose theories build the basis for the book, and for much of the Freedom Farmer movement of the century to follow their initial work.

These chapters serve as a thorough review of their discussions on Collective Agency and Community Resilience (CACR): Commons as Praxis, Prefigurative Politics, and Economic Autonomy. The book is positioned under these working theories.

When I bought this book, I was hoping to jump right into the Freedom Farms of the 1960s, and gain a deeper dive into the varied people who manage black farm co-ops today, but that didn't really come to fruition until Fannie Lou Hamer's chapter, 1/2-way through the book. And I loved learning about Fannie, whose work I was first exposed to during my college years (over 20 years ago).

My expectation was that it might start with Malik Yakini, whose chapter begins on page 117, and whose work I have been aware of since the 2008 recession. Instead, he only gets 20 pages, and his is the final chapter of the book.

Its a short book!

Monica M. White was writing for an academic audience, which she does very well. I would love to learn more about this topic, however, without the strict writing formula, and with more intimate experiences shared with the folks involved in today's Freedom Farms/co-ops.

I would love to receive some recommendations!

If you are unfamiliar with the revolutionary men, Booker T Washington, WEB du Bois, and George Washington Carver, this is a perfect book to gain a solid foundation of their ideas that helped form the black Renaissance, and the foundation of the black power movements throughout the 21st century.

[Claudia U. · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent work of research and ethnography by Dr. Monica White that chronicles everyday forms of resistance and community resilience among Black agricultural movements. This book was immediately engaging and truly merged theory and praxis through the multiple examples cited by Dr. White demonstrating the concept of collective agency and community resilience (CACR). Walking the readers through major historical periods focusing on the work Black scholars and practitioners, we learned about how Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and W.E.B. DuBois contributed in fundamental ways to ideals of Black empowerment and liberation through collectivism, cooperatives in agriculture, scientific advances in sustainable agriculture, and infrastructure for advancement within this field for marginalized Black farmers. I especially enjoyed reading about Fannie Lou Hamer's revolutionary work in the Freedom Farm Cooperative and highlighting the successes while acknowledging the limitations. Culminating in present day Detroit and the urban agriculture movement led by Black women and men, the reader is immersed in seeing how the Black community works to challenge structural violence and marginalization by the state through everyday forms of resistance in community development. This book is must for the food systems canon.

[kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderful read. a must read for all, especially food workers or people interested in food sovereignty. it’s astounding to know what amazing systems Black people cobbled together against all odds. it has really encouraged me as a food worker. it feels like food sovereignty is possible. it’s violent how much of Black history is systemically erased or buried. i’m so grateful for this book and the truths that monica m. white brought forth into the 21st century.

i plan on re-reading because it was saturated with history i had not ever heard. it had some familiar historical figures; booker t. washington, washington carver, w.e.b. dubois, and fannie lou hammer, but i learned about them in an entirely new and compelling way. monica m. white brought out so much of their buried accomplishments and efforts related to the food system. i had no idea about pretty much everything in the book.

i work for an urban food co-op mostly comprised of white people. most people, had thought the concept of a co-op was a hippie white person thing. but through this book i learned it’s history NOT white (which makes perfect sense) and was commonly practiced throughout Black rural america.

thank you to Monica m. White for her contributions to the world and the gift of this book! 💞✨

[KaWoodtiereads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Growing your own food is an Act of Resistance. In 2022, with crippling inflation hitting our grocery stores, I want nothing more than to grow my own food for my family and build a firm relationship with the land. In this book, the author provides a brief history of the legacy of Black people who have fought oppression through horticulture. Drawing from the efforts of George Washington Carver, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Fanny Lou Hamer, The Freedom Farmers Movement inspires Black people to renew their relationship with the land, that through the political power of cooperatives and community gardening, they can continue to dismantle systems of oppression. It gives a history of how Black grassroots organizations have established successful systems to fight for overall wellness in their communities. The information contained in this book is important because it gives credit to the ways that Black food knowledge has been both exploited and disregarded. A great quote from the conclusion: "If pain is all there was, how can we explain the Indigenous roots of the current urban farming movement spearheaded by Black people?" I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about political action through food.

[Mayze · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finished reading Freedom Farmers: Agricultural Resistance and the Black Freedom Movement by Monica M. White. This book was such a great and easy read. The main theme in this book was collective agency and community resilience. Freedom Farmers puts forth a narrative about African Americans and our connection with agriculture as a means to create resilient communities. Freedom Farmers articulates three main points throughout the book; economic autonomy, prefigurative politics, and commons as praxis. Monica M. White provides acheivements made by Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, W.E.B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others to emphasize the importance of pooling resources, forming cooperatives and educational institutions, providing health care in a time where communities needed to rely on each other to thrive. In a contemporary context, Freedom Farmers discusses Detroit Black Community Food Security Network to highlight what is currently being done in the theme of collective agency and community resilience. This book served as a foundational introduction on community resilience, capacity building, and the importance of creating collective agency.

[Annapurna Holtzapple · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got a copy of this in late September of 2019, because on Sept 26 I had gone to a talk Monica White gave about the black agricultural movement.
It was so invigorating, inspiring, hopeful and powerful that I remember the exact date, and reading her book is the same way. Freedom Farmers is a must-read for all Americans and anybody who eats food. It is moving and powerful and effectively communicates agriculture as resistance and a political tool, specifically for African American communities all over the nation. This book discusses racism, the power dynamics of nutrition and health, community development, political organizing and resistance, regenerative and circular economic structures, sustainability, connection to land, and voter suppression. I think Monica White is inspirational and this book is fantastic in its content and creation of a narrative that is an energizing call for action and resistance.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book goes beyond an existing emphasis on subjugation, violence, and exploitation in narrating black Americans' relationship to the land by focusing on how agriculture has also long comprised a site of collective struggle, resistance, and liberation. White focuses in particular on efforts among black farmers to create agricultural cooperatives "as a space and place to practice freedom" (3), advancing the notions of Collective Agency and Community Resilience as a way to theorize the prefigurative politics, economic autonomy, and emphasis on commons as praxis that contributed to the success of such cooperatives historically. White could have written hundreds and hundreds of pages but instead shares a succinct, powerful, and to-the-point commentary that accessibly connects histories of black resistance to white power struggles to the contemporary food movement. 10/10.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exhilarating, thorough, and thoughtful examination of recent coooperative endeavors in post Civil Rights black history. Ms White describes the pro agricultural narrative that has been overlooked and suppressed in retelling African American histories and the community connection with he land. She describes how these efforts are characterized by key strategies that support collective success for alternative economy among marginalized people that can be applied going forward.

[Maria Jose · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible project that connects insightful methodology, theoretical framework, praxis with Black American history in agriculture. Reading this book serves everyone. It has been instrumental in investigating questions about foodways and resistance efforts/movements in the US. Monica White's work is instrumental to understanding the impact of Black farmers in American and the oppressive systems Black agriculture navigated for Black Americans.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fascinating read details the liberatory nature of black agricultural cooperatives throughout history. White clearly lays out how agriculture is a stealthy form of economic, political, and social resistance. I especially enjoyed learning about the history of black cooperatives and agriculture.

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Monica White is a clear and brilliant writer who makes a subject she is passionate about easily readable and understandable. Her research always goes deep and her interpretations are right on. I highly recommend to anyone interested in food (that would be everybody) and systemic social justice.

[Colin J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

While reading Freedom Farmers, I quickly realized that Monica M. White was describing a much larger and more advanced project than the small community garden in my hometown of 10,000. I found most of the book enlightening, interesting, and compelling. For me as a historian, the sociological jargon that dove into theories and frameworks, especially in the introduction, lost me at times and tempted me to abandon the book before I got to the first chapter. After the initial deluge, the book became more readable. Using the legacies of Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, W. E. B. du Bois, and three cooperative projects, White documents self-efficiency and self-reliance as resistance through a collective agency and community resilience (CACR) framework and posits the legacy of agricultural resistance of the past century is and can be continued through the contemporary Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN).
In her introduction, White outlines the CACR framework as being supported by three strategies: commons as praxis, prefigurative politics, and economic autonomy. In the five subsequent chapters, she establishes how black agriculture movements in America have accomplished CACR over the past century. While some scholars choose to use a plethora of examples from innumerable people, events, and institutions, White resists that approach. Instead, she focuses on the legacies of three individuals to present the intellectual framework of black agriculture, three organizations that illustrate CACR in past movements of black agriculture, and a new organization that uses CACR principles for a modern world. This method of organization results in a tidy, readable monograph.
White introduces Washington, Carver, and du Bois, asserting that they saw agriculture as a strategy of resistance. The chapter poorly defines what aspect of agriculture formed resistance. I struggled to grasp what she meant. When she concluded the chapter, the focus had shifted to her arguing that these three men provided an intellectual tradition that connected freedom with the independence and self-reliance that agriculture could bring. This was well-supported in the chapter as was their contribution to improving agriculture for blacks, providing the springboard to explore three cooperative systems founded in 1967.
Fannie Lou Hamer’s Freedom Farm Cooperative (FFC), a local organization, was the first of the three cooperatives to be explored. White argues it was successful in illustrating what a community could achieve through cooperation: a self-reliant and autonomous sanctuary from the deprivation whites used to maintain their power in the eve of the civil rights movement. The next two cooperatives were larger in size and are used to explore additional elements of the CACR framework. The North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative (NBCFC), a regional operation supported by multiple community organizations, worked to eliminate the middleman and keep more money in the farmers’ pockets. This organization ticks off all the boxes of the CACR framework as did the final and largest organization reviewed. The Federation of Southern Cooperatives (FSC) was an umbrella enabling agency that supported cooperative initiatives across the American southeast. While White could have been distracted by the miscellany of programs FSC offered, she kept her research focused on the elements that pertained to CACR and agriculture resistance.
In her research of the three cooperatives, White makes extensive use of their meeting minutes and annual reports. She also uses newspapers, letters, census reports, and other writings, especially by leaders of these movements. For instance, when exploring the FSC’s agriculture programs, she mainly used their annual reports, but also information from a few other sources, but while painting the economic scene for blacks in Mississippi, she relies on census and U.S. Senate reports. The tactic changes when she reaches the DBCFSN.
White’s findings on the DBCFSN are heavily supported by the words of those closely involved in the effort. She uses their quotes, some of them quite lengthy, to describe their work. Here again, White demonstrates her expertise by steering clear of offering her opinion on the comments on hot-button issues of climate change, organics, and environmental protection, by focusing on her thesis. The DBCFSN organization, she argues, already demonstrates commons as praxis and prefigurative politics and is moving towards economic autonomy and thus has a model to offer the world. In closing White makes the point that while boycotts, demonstrations, and protests rail against injustice and ills, CACR take that energy and use it to build a safe, democratic, and economically independent community.
White provides an excellent defence of her position that the DBCFSN is renewing the CACR practices of the cooperative movements of the last century which were built on the vision and work of Washington, Carver, and du Bois. The book merges history and sociology, making it a challenging, but rewarding read for historians and a compelling read for those interested in sociology and social justice.

[Bre · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a few years since I've sat down to read an educational text on agriculture, so it took me longer to read than I would have preferred.

As a small farmer and a lover of history this book offers an enthralling perspective on the history of Black Americans and their relationships to agriculture, which has not always been one of slavery and exploitation. The author speaks of Civil Rights Era endeavors that connected people and communities to the land as a means of survival and political resistance. She also highlights current efforts in Detroit that are using an agricultural foundation to strengthen individuals and communities.


Favorite quote in the book:
"Down where we are, food is used as a political weapon. But if you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, you can feed yourself and your family, and nobody can push you around. If we have something like some pigs and some gardens and a few things like that, even if we have no jobs, we can eat and we can look after our families." -Fannie Lou Hamer

[Hannah Duiven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for the TNFP book club this month and it will inform my relationship to my work and to food sovereignty as a whole in big ways moving forward. It was a helpful history lesson about the most important black voices in the world of agriculture and farming collectives, but more importantly I feel that it exists as a narrative of black joy, resilience, power, and collective action within farming - rather than the stories we often hear of the black experience of farming that is centered on black pain, death, and oppression. I am reminded by this book that the food justice/food sovereignty movement is not new and did not originate in white communities (although it is often whitewashed) and I bear a new responsibility to acknowledge this known truth in my own work within food justice at a primarily white organization.

Coming from a background in sociology, I loved the theoretical framework lens and the way the author outlined Community Resilience and Collective Action within the different organizations highlighted.

[Kennedy Butterfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Section on booker t Washington, George Washington carver, and W.E.B DuBois was my favorite and felt the most developed. George Washington Carver especially i felt embarrassed by how little I knew and now want to learn more. I enjoyed reading about Fannie Lou hamer too, but I think from here the book became a bit monotonous and surface level in the historical storytelling. Generally loved the idea but wanted more.

I’m also kind of averse to this nutrition education idea everyone seems so excited by. Mostly because science has not really adequately established what healthy eating looks like and I find it hard to believe that there’s anyone in America who has not been encouraged to feel shame about eating sugar (but maybe I’m wrong about this part?) I do think that farming and connecting with food results in fuller bodies and fuller lives which is something I’m super interested in enjoyed hearing about how people are/have been making this happen in radical ways.

[Lapeyre Mathilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

très très très contente d'avoir pu lire cet essai que j'ai adoré. C'était tellement intéressant. Et accessible si jamais le sujet vous tente vous pouvez foncer l'autrice tire le fil de sa pelote de façon super claire, on n'a plus qu'à la suivre ! je vais en faire une petite chronique insta à mon avis ça va pas tarder le bazar !
franchement les éditions cambourakis c'est quand même quelque chose. c'est tellement important de traduire ce genre d'ouvrages. bref je recommande à mille % vous l'aurez compris.
le sous titre résume très bien le sujet "Résistances agriculturelles noires aux Etats Unis" et on part de l'abolition de l'esclavage pour arriver jusqu'à nos jours donc franchement c'était trop bien. ça se passe surtout en milieu rural ce qui m'intéressait beaucoup mais finalement le dernier chapitre sur l'agriculture urbaine à Détroit était au moins tout aussi intéressant. bref j'arrête il y a trop à dire. c'est à lire

[chu]

Rewrites the narrative of agriculture as a site of oppression as one of resistance. Well-researched book! However, the analytical framework of Collective Action and Community Resilience (CACR) was not particularly meaningful. Resilience usually connotes a status quo to return to. Is there? Engages with James Scott's idea of "everyday acts of resistance", but only tangentially since the Black cooperative agricultural movement is probably more organised than casual. Still, very important work.