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African Americans And Land Loss In Texas: Government Duplicity And Discrimination Based On Race And Class, Debra A. Reid

Debra A. Reid

"African American Farmers and Land Loss in Texas," surveys the ways that discrimination at the local, state, and national levels constrained minority farmers during the twentieth century. It considers the characteristics of small-scale farming that created liabilities for landowners regardless of race, including state and federal programs that favored commercial and agribusiness interests. In addition to economic challenges African American farmers had to negotiate racism in the Jim Crow South. The Texas Agricultural Extension Service, the state branch of the USDA's Extension Service, segregated in 1915. The "Negro" division gave black farmers access to information about USDA programs, but it …