Agrarian Trust

Where did the land go?

From the newly freed slaves of 1863 to today’s black farmers, African-Americans have fought to acquire and maintain land, and have encountered crippling obstacles along the way.

In 1910, nearly one million black farmers in the U.S. owned a total of 15 million acres; by 1969 they held only 6 million acres.

In 1920, blacks owned 14% of the nation’s farms; today, there are only 18,000 black farmers, representing less than 1% of all farms.

What happened?

pbsdocumentary

Find supplemental materials to the PBS History of Black Farming & Land Loss

or

Read the Complete History published by PBS.