From “What Happened in Alabama?”: The history of Black land loss
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 June 2024
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In honor of Juneteenth, we’re bringing you an episode of a new podcast from APM Studios that’s especially relevant on this holiday. In the podcast, “What Happened in Alabama?” host Lee Hawkins unpacks his family history, confronts cycles of trauma and grapples with an issue many Black families face: how to keep land in the family.
This episode is about Black land loss. In 1910, Black farmers collectively owned over 16 million acres of farmland. A century later, over 90% of that land is no longer owned by Black farmers. Lee explores that tumultuous history and what Black families can do to hold on to their property.
If you’d like to hear more episodes from the series, you can find “What Happened in Alabama?” wherever you get podcasts.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey Smarties, it's Kimberly. We are off for Juneteenth, but we're in your feeds to share a |
| 0:05.0 | podcast from our colleagues at 8 PM Studios that I'm listening to and that's especially |
| 0:10.0 | relevant on this holiday. It's called What Happened in Alabama hosted and reported by |
| 0:15.5 | Lee Hawkins who's also a special correspondent for Marketplace. This episode you're |
| 0:20.4 | about to hear is all about black land loss, why black Americans went from collectively |
| 0:25.8 | owning a lot of land after emancipation to hardly any today, and the economic power of owning property in this country. |
| 0:35.0 | Lee also gets into his personal family history, intergenerational trauma, and the long-term |
| 0:40.4 | impacts of Jim Crow that exist beyond what most of us understand about segregation. |
| 0:45.9 | We're going to drop a link to the entire series in our show notes and you should definitely |
| 0:49.7 | check it out. |
| 0:50.7 | All right, here's Lee. We wanted to give a heads up that this episode includes |
| 0:55.6 | talk of abuse and acts of violence. You can find resources on our website, what |
| 1:01.5 | happened in Alabama.org. |
| 1:04.0 | Listener discretion is advised. |
| 1:08.0 | Around 1910, black farmers collectively owned over 16 million acres of farmland. |
| 1:18.0 | A century later, 90% of that land is no longer in the hands of black farmers. Economists estimate that the |
| 1:25.8 | value of land loss is upwards of $300 billion. This is an issue that's |
| 1:31.8 | personal for me. |
| 1:33.0 | There were large successful farms on both sides of my family that we no longer own, |
| 1:38.0 | or only own a fraction of now. |
| 1:40.0 | How we became separated from our land is part of the trauma and fear that influenced how my parents raised me. |
| 1:47.0 | I want to get to the heart of what happened and why. That's the goal of this episode. |
... |
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