The First Community Land Trust was Started by and for Southern Black Farmers — With Support from Eastern Connecticut
The first community land trust (CLT) was organized primarily by civil rights activists in the late 1960s for Black sharecroppers who had lost their homes and jobs for registering to vote. It was an experiment in cooperation and collective resilience in the face of endless challenges. The creation of New Communities, Inc. grew out of resistance and necessity.
Charles Sherrod, an organizer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and Slater King, the President of The Albany Movement and a cousin of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., believed that they could create housing and equitable economic development for the Black farmers in need of homes and jobs. They brought together others from the civil rights movement, including John Lewis, to do this. Slater King asked Bob Swann from the Voluntown Peace Trust, who had helped rebuild Black churches that had been firebombed, to share his ideas of creating nonprofit community groups to hold land in trust. Swann’s major contribution to the development of community land trusts was to put the “C” in CLT, emphasizing the importance of community control of the land they put in trust. Researching various models to meet the needs of the local Black community and obtaining funding from supporters of the civil rights movement, they purchased 5700-acre tract of land in Albany, Georgia in 1969, creating New Communities, Inc.
From its founding in 1969 to 1983, many of the resident farmers of New Communities considered their land trust as a safe haven for other Blacks. The dozen or so residents of New Communities, as well as dozens more participating community members, grew and sold crops, raised and slaughtered hogs, operated a smokehouse, and even built a sugarcane mill. But a combination of systemic racism and bad fortune conspired against them. Racist whites in the area boycotted their market and otherwise sabotaged New Communities. Blight and bad weather caused financial troubles to mount. Requests for an emergency loan from the federal Farmers Home Administration were consistently denied by local officials, despite the approval of similar requests from neighboring white farmers. Then, starting in 1981, a severe drought devastated the farms of southwest Georgia, exacerbating problems. When finally Washington officials forced local administrators to approve the loans, the assistance New Communities received was consistently too little, too late, and tied to arbitrary restrictions. New Communities persisted for a few years longer, but eventually lost the property to foreclosure in 1985.
The residents of New Communities were just some of the victims of the systemic discrimination by the Farmers Home Administration over several years, as was revealed in a national class action lawsuit brought by Black farmers against the FHA in 1997. As one judge wrote later, “In several Southeastern states, for instance, it took three times as long on average to process the application of an African American farmer as it did to process the application of a white farmer.” But the members of New Communities did not disappear, instead continuing to meet regularly even after losing the original property.
The case against the FHA was eventually settled, and in 2009, New Communities was awarded $12 million in damages. The community land trust invested the money in a 1638-acre former plantation near Albany, that was originally owned by one of the largest slaveholder estates in Georgia, transforming it into a place for healing. They named it Resora, and picked up where they had left off all those years ago. Their persistence paid off. Their first project was to install an irrigation system to sustain their crops. The farm collective now grows pecans, grapes, and squash among other crops, and young Black farmers are learning from older ones.
(Shirley Sherrod, Joanne Sheehan, Sharmaine Gregor)
New Communities continues to foster and inspire community land trusts across the country and around the world as a model for permanent affordable housing and equitable economic development. As a Black-led organization, they have played a special role in inspiring other Black-led community land trusts, from Dudley Street in Boston to Philadelphia, Oakland, and South Central LA. In 2019, New Communities celebrated 50 years of resilience, hosting community land trust activists from around the country, supported by the Grounded Solutions Network. The event was organized by Shirley Sherrod, one of the founders who continues to be a leader of New Communities and promoter of community land trusts. SE CT CLT President Joanne Sheehan and Vice President Sharmaine Gregor both attended the conference and celebration.
Sources:
Arc of Justice: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of a Beloved Community. Producer/Directors Helen S. Cohen and Mark Lipman. Open Studio Productions. 2016. https://www.arcofjusticefilm.com/
Breed, Allen G. “Black Farmers’ Lawsuit Revives a Dream.” The Washington Post. December 6, 2001. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/12/06/black-farmers-lawsuit-revives-a-dream/f286668f-67de-400f-a10b-051ba9bf47a7/
Elliot, Debbie. “5 Decades Later, New Communities Land Trust Still Helps Black Farmers.” National Public Radio. October 3, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/03/766706906/5-decades-later-communities-land-trust-still-helps-black-farmers
New Communities, Inc.: https://www.newcommunitiesinc.com/