Dispossession: Discrimination against African American Farmers in the Age of Civil Rights
"ReadDispossession. It's a riveting and timely account of the deleterious legacy of slavery. And despite the national interest in civil rights, not much competes withDispossession."--Huffington Post"Daniel tells a fascinating, in many ways surprising, but completely infuriating story. His archival research is creative and impeccable."--Law and History Review"This thoroughly researched and clearly written account of USDA discrimination against black farmers merits reading by anyone interested in agricultural and southern history."--American Historical Review"An essential contribution to the rural history of the civil rights movement and to the growing history of black farm ownership."--Register of the Kentucky Historical Society"Daniel'sDispossessionis provocative, beautifully crafted, and a fitting continuation of his tremendous contribution to our understanding of the fundamental changes in the United States' agricultural systems during the twentieth century."--Journal of American History"The critical exposure of discrimination at all levels of government is both informative and provocative and is a welcome addition to the historiographical conversation."--H-1960s"Southern farmers struggled to keep up with changes in technology and policy, economics and politics, labor relations and out-migration. African American farmers bore the additional burden of crippling discrimination. . . . With customary passion, Pete Daniel methodically demonstrates that the USDA bears much of the blame.Dispossessioncatalogs decades of locally administered and federally sanctioned racism that permeated this powerful government agency's activities within the South."--North Carolina Historical Review"Likely to stimulate renewed scholarly interest in 20th-century agricultural history, this fine book belongs in every academic library. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries."--Choice"Soberingly revealing the dark underside of an era hailed for black success against racism, Daniel's work exposes sickening, irreparable, racist destruction that compels reconception of popular memories of a generation of civil rights victories. This book belongs in any serious collection on U.S. civil rights, federal farm policy, or 20th-century America."--Library Journal