The Negro and the Land (1914)

“Disfranchise the Negro, give him an education and full rights of work and property. This will settle the Negro problem.” Such was the argument put forward in 1890 when Mississippi began the nullification of the United States Constitution.

What has been the result? The Negro problem is not settled despite the fact that nine-tenths of the colored men, 21 years of age and over, have lost their votes in the Gulf States. Education has been restricted, cheapened and lowered in efficiency, and most Negro children of school age are out of school. Low wages and caste restrictions hamper the Negro worker and show little abatement.

And the right to hold property? Even this is being openly attacked. In Southern and border cities a half dozen ordinances are making it difficult or impossible for Negroes to purchase city homes.

But there is the rural South, the haven of refuge for all true black men, if they read the Gospel according to our best friends correctly. And yet listen to this, by Clarence Poe, of North Carolina, editor of the widely read Progressive Farmer:

I have received hundreds and hundreds of letters, representing fifteen States, endorsing the plan of race segregation I advocated on this page, August 30. …
 
The law I advocated August 30, it will be remembered, was just this: ‘Whenever the greater part of the land acreage in any given district that may be laid off is owned by one race, a majority of the voters in such a district may say, if they wish, that in future no land shall be sold to a person of a different race; provided such action is approved or allowed (as being justified by considerations of the peace, protection and social life of the community) by a reviewing judge or board of county commissioners.’
 
Such a board, as I have said, could be used by any white community to keep itself white, but the Negro would almost never be able to use it to make a community wholly Negro. If you are in favor of such a plan and want to know more about it, send me a postal card or letter at once.

What is the reason of all this? This is the reason in North Carolina:

	Colored	Farmers
	1900	1910
Farms owned	17,520	21,443
Land in farms owned	965,452	1,197,496
Per cent. of improved land	40.9	42.8
Value of property owned	8,828,581	27,448,410
Value of land	5,351,290	17,063,588

Increase of value of all farm property, 1900-1910, 130 per cent.; of land and buildings, 134 per cent.

This is the reason in the United States:

	1900	1910	Increase Percent	Increase for whites
Value of farm property farmed by colored farmers	546,723,508	1,279,234,245	132	99.6
Value of farm property owned by colored farmers	179,796,639	440,922,439	145.2	93.2
Value land of owners	102,022,601	277,391,441	171.9	109.2
Value buildings of owners	28,662,167	69,354,013	142	74.1
Value implements of owners	8,352,975	15,852,814	89.8	69
Value livestock of owners	40,758,896	78,324,171	92.2	59.1

Here we are then: Advance toward property and independent farm ownership and a movement among our “best friends” to stop it.

We confess to some bewilderment in this development, and we are waiting for enlightenment from those wise statesmen who have been volubly leading us out of the wilderness in these last ten years.

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Citation: Du Bois, W.E.B. 1914. “The Negro and the Land.” The Crisis. 7(4):189–190.